With Dr. Seuss’ birthday rapidly approaching and the popular Read Across America event being held around the country, I thought I’d dig into the history behind Dr. Seuss. Here’s what I found . . .
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss is an American Icon. He has captivated over four generations of children and parents alike by helping millions of children learn to read. To the average American raised since the 1940′s, the name Dr. Seuss conjures an image of rhymes and tongue twisters and such quirky characters as the Cat in the Hat, the Fox in Sox, Yertle the Turtle and the Grinch. He wrote and illustrated 44 books, which have been translated into 20 different languages making him the best selling children’s author of all time.
Theodore Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. As a teenager, Theodore left Springfield to attend Dartmouth College where he became the editor-in-chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth’s humor magazine. After Geisel was caught throwing a drinking party which violated Prohibition laws, the school made him resign from all extracurricular activities. He continued to work on the Jack-O-Lantern without the schools knowledge by signing his work with the pseudonym “Seuss” which was both Ted’s middle name and his mother’s maiden name. After graduating from Dartmouth in 1925, he went onto Oxford University with the intention of acquiring a doctorate in literature. There he met and fell in love with Helen Palmer, whom he married in 1927.
After returning back to the United States, Seuss began publishing cartoons and humorous articles in major magazines such as Judge, Vanity Fair and Liberty; although most of his work during his early career was to create advertising campaigns for Standard Oil. After a while, he began to grow frustrated in the advertising world and in his spare time he began writing and illustrating an alphabet book for children. It was an exciting project for Seuss but after several publishers turned him down he was discouraged from writing for years.
While on a vacation cruise in 1936, he conceived the idea for his first children’s book. Written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss, “And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street” was published in 1937, but not after being rejected by more than 20 different publishers.
In 1957 the country’s concern for children’s literacy prompted Dr. Seuss to write the most defining book of his career; “The Cat In The Hat”, which became the first book in his line of “Beginner Books”. He answered the question of “why children can’t read” by creating fun and entertaining books that children wanted to read.
Helen Palmer Geisel died in 1967. The following year, Geisel married an old friend, Audrey Stone Dimond who not only influenced his later books, but now guards his legacy as the president of Dr. Seuss Enterprises. Dr. Seuss continued writing and illustrating books that told whimsical and zany tales using monosyllabic words that readers could comprehend. His use of patterned and rhyming text became the foundation for many young readers. Theodor Seuss Geisel died on September 24, 1991.
Some of Dr. Seuss’ most popular books include One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960), The Cat in the Hat (1957), Green Eggs and Ham (1960) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957). There have been a number of animated films made based on his books such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Cat in the Hat and most recently Horton Hears a Who. And there are even Cat in the Hat costumes. In 1990, Geisel published a book for adults titled “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” that became a hugely popular graduation gift for high school and college students.
Today, his books and characters remain to be very influential in young children’s lives.
