The Smallest Horse in the World

Before Cyber Monday became a multi day event, before stampedes of parents besieged displays of Elmo and Cabbage Patch kids with greater gusto than I will ever understand, there was the neighborhood department store. While Manhattan had Macy’s, Brooklyn had Abraham & Straus. 

On Valentine's Day, 1865, Abraham & Straus opened its doors at 285 Fulton Street as Wechsler & Abraham, a “Dry Goods, Shawl, and Cloak Emporium.” The business took off, expanded, relocated to a new showstopper of a building in 1885, and was partially bought out by the Straus brothers in 1893, thus becoming the iconic Abraham & Straus at 422 Fulton Street. Its 2,000+ employees must have enjoyed their staff-only roof deck, in-house medical care, and complimentary Thanksgiving turkeys. Certainly, Brooklyn shoppers enjoyed the business immensely as the flagship became the third largest department store in the country. 

This Photo of the Week showcases an Abraham & Straus publicity stunt that was captured by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on December 13, 1908, featuring “Teddy, the Smallest Horse in the World, Attached to a Miniature Abraham & Straus Delivery Wagon.” The caption continues, “Note the Astonishment of the Ordinary Delivery Horse, Who Sees Teddy for the First Time.” During the holiday season, Teddy could be found in the Abraham & Straus toy department. The Eagle had conducted an interview with Teddy (yes, you read that correctly), published November 15th, 1908, in which he stated, “About the only thing I do is to enjoy myself every afternoon pulling around the dinkiest little wagon you ever saw in your life.”

If you’d like to learn more about the much loved Abraham & Straus, check out Abraham and Straus: It’s Worth a Trip from Anywhere, by Michael J. Lisicky.

Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at [email protected].