   thumb|a homemade sock monkey wearing a fez and scarf. a sock monkey is a toy made from socks fashioned in the likeness of a monkey. these stuffed animals are a mixture of folk art and kitsch in the culture of the united states and the culture of canada. == origins == the sock monkey's most direct predecessors originated in the victorian era, when the craze for imitation stuffed animals swept from europe into north america and met the burgeoning arts and crafts movement. craft makers began sewing stuffed animals as toys to comfort children, and, as tales of the scramble for africa increased the public's familiarity with exotic species, monkey toys soon became a fixture of american nurseries. however, these early stuffed monkeys were not necessarily made from socks, and also lacked the characteristic red lips of the sock monkeys popular today. john nelson, a swedish immigrant to the united states, patented the sock-knitting machine in 1868, and began knitting socks on an automatic machine rockford, illinois as early as 1870. on september 15, 1880, the nelson knitting company formed, producing the "celebrated rockford seamless hosiery," selling them under the name of the "nelson sock." the iconic sock monkeys made from red-heeled socks, known today as the rockford red heel, emerged at the earliest in 1932, the year the nelson knitting company added the trademarked red heel to its product. in the early years, the red-heeled sock was marketed as "de-tec-tip". nelson knitting was an innovator in the mass market work sock field, creating a loom that enabled socks to be manufactured without seams in the heel. these seamless work socks were so popular that the market was soon flooded with imitators, and socks of this type were known under the generic term "rockfords". nelson knitting added the red heel "de-tec-tip" to assure its customers that they were buying "original rockfords". this red heel gave the monkeys their distinctive mouth. during the great depression, american crafters first made sock monkeys out of worn-out rockford red heel socks. in 1955, nelson knitting was awarded the patent for the sock monkey doll. events leading up to this included helen cooke of aurora, colorado receiving the patent in 1
Folk_art Stuffed_toys Toy_animals