Bear Archery Bear Archery Bear Archery is a manufacturer and marketer of bows and archery equipment located in Gainesville, Florida owned by Escalade Sports. The company was founded in 1933 as the Bear Products Company in Detroit by Fred Bear and Charles Piper. The initial focus was on silk-screening and advertising support work for automotive companies. In 1938 Fred Bear hired Nels Grumley, a woodworker and bowyer, and the company expanded to offer hand-made bows. Fred Bear sold the advertising side of the Bear Products Company in 1940. The archery business was named Bear Archery. In 1947 the company moved to a
Chinese archery changed near the end of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911 CE), when the availability of reliable firearms made archery less effective as a military weapon. As such, the Guangxu Emperor abolished archery from the military exam syllabus in 1901. Between the collapse of Imperial China in 1911 and beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), there was a short-lived effort to revive traditional archery practice. After World War II, traditional bow makers were able to continue their craft until the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), when circumstances forced workshops such as Ju Yuan Hao to suspend the manufacture of traditional Chinese bows. In