Theodor Seuss Geisel: Here's the Real Dr. Seuss!

Dr. Seuss ( the enduring legacy of Theodor Geisel) was known for being an illustrator and cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life and other publications where he worked on a number of advertising publications such as FLIT, Standard Oil and a political cartoonist for the New York newspaper.

Theodor Seuss Geisel: The Real Dr. Seuss https://youtu.be/Sz4U_fGXH0c via @YouTube

 Later on when he published one of his cartoons for the humour magazine, The Judge where he worked as a writer and illustrator, the ad campaign’s catchphrase was “Quick, Henry, the Flit”. This spawned a song and led to more advertising work and also the first foray of writing children’s books.

                            

A very talented individual, he was also a poet, screenwriter, filmmaker, political cartoonist and children’s author he was known to have worked in the animation and film department of the United States Army; where he not only write, produced and animated many productions but also won the Academy Award for best Documentary Feature!  

"Marco, keep your eyelids up/ And see what you can see"

However, it wasn't always that easy for him over the course of his career, when his very first children's book –'And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street' was rejected 27 times before it got published in 1937! It was during the war when he had taken a hiatus from writing children's literature to which he returned back to after the war ended. 

Known for his kooky characters, invented words, and tongue-twisted rhymes, Dr. Seuss is the world’s most beloved children’s book author and cartoonist. Filled with morals and life-lessons, he is known for writing and publishing over 60 books under this pen name. His work was translated into over 20 different languages and sold over 500 million copies.   

Not many people are aware of this, but he produced cartoons for the army during WWII. He served as the commander of the Animation Department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces where he produced propaganda and training films. This included one about a bumbling soldier named Private Snafu.

His career was one that not many know was full of cartooning political cartoonist and working as an editorial cartoonist where he drew up to 400 cartoons in up to two years, where he was also supportive of President Roosevelt’s conduct of the war.  He continued to pen down children’s novels even post war but it was only in 1954 that it was a revolutionary one, marking an important milestone. 

                                                     

                                         

Without The Cat in The Hat, Dr. Seuss would have just remained a minor light in the history of children’s literature. One of the most interesting and unique facts that not many people are even aware of is that ‘Dr. Seuss’ alias evolved from a pseudonym that Geisel came up with at Dartmouth College where he studied till he became a graduate and was also the maiden name of his mother Henrietta. In it’s traditional pronunciation Seuss rhymes with voice as the fame grew people began to mispronounce it.   

He was instructed to create a book using a list of 220 words that were important for 1^stgraders to know as school children were showing a lack of interest to read! 

Not only did he accept this challenge but also he created such an exceptional book – The Cat in the Hat, which was published in 1957 that it was such a historic success, it cemented his position in children’s literature! One critic described it as a "tour de force." Very interesting and surprisingly Dr. Seuss was a fan of chapeaus and had kept a rather large collection in a hidden part of his home. Reports have claimed that he had over 300 different hats at one point during his life!   

Dr. Seuss was challenged by his publisher to write a book using only 50 different words and to tell the story of a picky-eater (like many children are who read his book)! So, this book was actually written to win a bet!

The bet was made in 1960 with Bennett Cerf, the co-founder of Random House and was for $50, which would be equivalent to approximately $382 today!               

Everything after that was just a string of best sellers, as he came up with successful books for children such as Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Blue Fish, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Oh! The Places You’ll Go, The Lorax, Horton Hears a Who, Fox in Sox, The Sneetches and Other Stories!, Hop on Pop, What Pet Should I get, Yertle the Turtle and other Stories, Happy Birthday To You, The Foot Book, Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?, Oh Say Can You Say What’s The Weather Today?, Dr. Seuss’s ABC, Oh, The Think’s You Can Think!, Wacky Wednesday, There’s A Wocket in my Pocket!, Scrambled Eggs Super; and MANY MORE!  

When questioned on what made him so successful, Geisel stated: “I don’t write for children. 

I write for people.” Or, as he once told an interviewer, “I think I can communicate with kids because I don’t try to communicate with kids. Ninety percent of the children’s books patronise the child and say there’s a difference between you and me, so you listen to this story. I, for some reason or another, don’t do that. I treat the child as an equal.”

The character of the Cat in “Cat in the Hat” and the Grinch in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” were inspired by himself.  For instance, with the Grinch: “I was brushing my teeth on the morning of the 26th of last December when I noted a very Grinch-ish countenance in the mirror. It was Seuss! Something had gone wrong with Christmas, I realized, or more likely with me. So I wrote the story about my sour friend, the Grinch, to see if I could rediscover something about Christmas that obviously I’d lost.”