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On this day in 1904, Theodor Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss, the author and illustrator of such beloved children’s books as “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham,” is born in Springfield, Massachusetts. Geisel, who used his middle name (which was also his mother’s maiden name) as his pen name, wrote 48 books–including some for adults–that have sold well over 200 million copies and been translated into multiple languages. Dr. Seuss books are known for their whimsical rhymes and quirky characters, which have names like the Lorax and the Sneetches and live in places like Hooterville.
Geisel, who was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts, graduated from Dartmouth College, where he was editor of the school’s humor magazine, and studied at Oxford University. There he met Helen Palmer, his first wife and the person who encouraged him to become a professional illustrator. Back in America, Geisel worked as a cartoonist for a variety of magazines and in advertising.
The first children’s book that Geisel wrote and illustrated, “And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street,” was rejected by over two dozen publishers before making it into print in 1937. Geisel’s first bestseller, “The Cat in the Hat,” was published in 1957. The story of a mischievous cat in a tall striped hat came about after his publisher asked him to produce a book using 220 new-reader vocabulary words that could serve as an entertaining alternative to the school reading primers children found boring.
Other Dr. Seuss classics include “Yertle the Turtle,” “If I Ran the Circus,” “Fox in Socks” and “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.”
Some Dr. Seuss books tackled serious themes. “The Butter Battle Book” (1984) was about the arms buildup and nuclear war threat during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. “Lorax” (1971) dealt with the environment.
Many Dr. Seuss books have been adapted for television and film, including “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” and “Horton Hears a Who!” 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.
Geisel, who lived and worked in an old observatory in La Jolla, California, known as “The Tower,” died September 24, 1991, at age 87.
Geisel, who was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts, graduated from Dartmouth College, where he was editor of the school’s humor magazine, and studied at Oxford University. There he met Helen Palmer, his first wife and the person who encouraged him to become a professional illustrator. Back in America, Geisel worked as a cartoonist for a variety of magazines and in advertising.
The first children’s book that Geisel wrote and illustrated, “And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street,” was rejected by over two dozen publishers before making it into print in 1937. Geisel’s first bestseller, “The Cat in the Hat,” was published in 1957. The story of a mischievous cat in a tall striped hat came about after his publisher asked him to produce a book using 220 new-reader vocabulary words that could serve as an entertaining alternative to the school reading primers children found boring.
Other Dr. Seuss classics include “Yertle the Turtle,” “If I Ran the Circus,” “Fox in Socks” and “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.”
Some Dr. Seuss books tackled serious themes. “The Butter Battle Book” (1984) was about the arms buildup and nuclear war threat during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. “Lorax” (1971) dealt with the environment.
Many Dr. Seuss books have been adapted for television and film, including “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” and “Horton Hears a Who!” 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.
Geisel, who lived and worked in an old observatory in La Jolla, California, known as “The Tower,” died September 24, 1991, at age 87.
Dr. Seuss born - Mar 02, 1904 - HISTORY.com
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Propaganda: Your Job in Germany
Directed by It's A Wonderful Life's Frank Capra and written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, produced by the United States Information & Education Division of ...
Thanks TSgt Joe C. for letting us know that March 2 is the anniversary of the birth of early Pysops animation specialist during WWII, American author, political cartoonist, poet, animator, book publisher, and artist Theodor Seuss Geisel who is best known for authoring more than 60 children's books under the pen name Dr. Seuss.
Image: At left, Theodor Seuss Geisel-Army as a US Army field grade officer; 1943 Still from a Private Snafu cartoon depicting Hitler as the devil; 1941-12-15 Cages cost money!, published by PM Magazine on December 15, 1941
Background in WWII from history.com/news/when-dr-seuss-went-to-war
"Before Dr. Seuss wrote the “Cat in the Hat,” “Green Eggs & Ham” or most of his acclaimed children’s books, he used his illustrative talents and penchant for rhyming to pen political cartoons and produce propaganda films that supported the Allied cause in World War II. II.
As World War II continued to rage on January 7, 1943, Theodor Geisel reported for duty. Dressed in a size 40-long captain’s uniform, the U.S. Army’s newest volunteer boarded a train for California, leaving behind his New York apartment as well as his budding career writing and illustrating children’s books under his distinctive pseudonym—Dr. Seuss.
Three years earlier, Geisel had been at work on his fourth children’s book, “Horton Hatches the Egg,” when a news flash on the radio announced that Paris had fallen to the Nazis. Having dabbled in political cartoons during the 1930s, Geisel felt compelled to put his projects for young readers aside and brandish his pen to fire satirical shots at Adolf Hitler and American isolationists such as aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh who wanted to keep the country out of the war in Europe. “While Paris was being occupied by the clanking tanks of the Nazis and I was listening on my radio, I found that I could no longer keep my mind on drawing pictures of Horton The Elephant. I found myself drawing pictures of Lindbergh The Ostrich,” he said.
In 1941 and 1942, Geisel drew over 400 editorial cartoons for the left-leaning tabloid newspaper PM. Although the cartoons sport his distinctive style and fanciful menagerie of creatures, the subject matter is quite foreign, in more ways than one, to Dr. Seuss readers. One cartoon depicts a “Lindbergh Quarter” with an ostrich sticking its head in the ground in place of an American eagle. Another showed Lindbergh patting the head of a swastika-covered sea serpent that sported Hitler’s trademark mustache.
When Geisel heard news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he put down his copy of the Sunday New York Times and went to his drawing board to sketch a Seussian bird labeled “ISOLATIONISM” being blasted high into the sky by an explosion. “He never knew what hit him,” read the caption. With the United States now at war with Japan, Geisel’s cartoons increasingly trafficked in racial stereotypes. He portrayed Japanese leaders as narrow-eyed, buck-toothed caricatures, and one xenophobic cartoon portrays Japanese-Americans on the West Coast waiting in a long line for blocks of dynamite as well as “the signal from home.”
The American government enlisted the illustrator in the war effort by having him draw cartoons that urged the conservation of resources and the purchase of savings bonds and stamps to raise money for the war effort. Wishing to do more to back the war that he had lobbied for, the 38-year-old Geisel joined the U.S. Army and was deployed to the Fox studios in Hollywood—dubbed “Fort Fox”—to serve with some of the country’s top filmmakers, screenwriters, animators and journalists in Oscar-winning director Frank Capra’s Signal Corps unit.
Geisel worked to enliven the typical training manuals with his imaginative characters, such as an anthropomorphized malaria-carrying mosquito named Ann who eschewed whiskey and gin for the blood of soldiers and the “squander bug” who feasted on money that could have been better spent on war bonds.
He also worked alongside famed Warner Bros. animation directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng in creating cartoon shorts featuring Private Snafu—a bald, bumbling GI with the looks of Elmer Fudd and the voice of Bugs Bunny (Mel Blanc supplied the voices of both characters). In nearly 30 episodes, the misadventures of the inept soldier both entertained and educated servicemen by demonstrating the pitfalls of doing things exactly as they shouldn’t be done—such as disobeying orders, evading censors and leaking classified information."
Rest in eternal peace Dr. Seuss!
"Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by It's A Wonderful Life's Frank Capra and written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, produced by the United States Information & Education Division of the Army Services Forces in 1946, this authentic film proposes, "War with Germany ends in victory, victory leads to peace ... Sometimes ... Sometimes not."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v5QCGqDYGo
FYI LTC Bill Koski CW5 (Join to see) MSG Brad Sand SGM Steve Wettstein SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SP5 Mark Kuzinski SrA Christopher Wright PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO1 John Miller SP5 Robert Ruck SPC (Join to see) PO3 Steven Sherrill SN Greg Wright SCPO Morris Ramsey TSgt Joe C. Cpl Joshua Caldwell SGT Michael Thorin SP5 Dave (Shotgun) Shockley SPC Margaret Higgins
Image: At left, Theodor Seuss Geisel-Army as a US Army field grade officer; 1943 Still from a Private Snafu cartoon depicting Hitler as the devil; 1941-12-15 Cages cost money!, published by PM Magazine on December 15, 1941
Background in WWII from history.com/news/when-dr-seuss-went-to-war
"Before Dr. Seuss wrote the “Cat in the Hat,” “Green Eggs & Ham” or most of his acclaimed children’s books, he used his illustrative talents and penchant for rhyming to pen political cartoons and produce propaganda films that supported the Allied cause in World War II. II.
As World War II continued to rage on January 7, 1943, Theodor Geisel reported for duty. Dressed in a size 40-long captain’s uniform, the U.S. Army’s newest volunteer boarded a train for California, leaving behind his New York apartment as well as his budding career writing and illustrating children’s books under his distinctive pseudonym—Dr. Seuss.
Three years earlier, Geisel had been at work on his fourth children’s book, “Horton Hatches the Egg,” when a news flash on the radio announced that Paris had fallen to the Nazis. Having dabbled in political cartoons during the 1930s, Geisel felt compelled to put his projects for young readers aside and brandish his pen to fire satirical shots at Adolf Hitler and American isolationists such as aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh who wanted to keep the country out of the war in Europe. “While Paris was being occupied by the clanking tanks of the Nazis and I was listening on my radio, I found that I could no longer keep my mind on drawing pictures of Horton The Elephant. I found myself drawing pictures of Lindbergh The Ostrich,” he said.
In 1941 and 1942, Geisel drew over 400 editorial cartoons for the left-leaning tabloid newspaper PM. Although the cartoons sport his distinctive style and fanciful menagerie of creatures, the subject matter is quite foreign, in more ways than one, to Dr. Seuss readers. One cartoon depicts a “Lindbergh Quarter” with an ostrich sticking its head in the ground in place of an American eagle. Another showed Lindbergh patting the head of a swastika-covered sea serpent that sported Hitler’s trademark mustache.
When Geisel heard news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he put down his copy of the Sunday New York Times and went to his drawing board to sketch a Seussian bird labeled “ISOLATIONISM” being blasted high into the sky by an explosion. “He never knew what hit him,” read the caption. With the United States now at war with Japan, Geisel’s cartoons increasingly trafficked in racial stereotypes. He portrayed Japanese leaders as narrow-eyed, buck-toothed caricatures, and one xenophobic cartoon portrays Japanese-Americans on the West Coast waiting in a long line for blocks of dynamite as well as “the signal from home.”
The American government enlisted the illustrator in the war effort by having him draw cartoons that urged the conservation of resources and the purchase of savings bonds and stamps to raise money for the war effort. Wishing to do more to back the war that he had lobbied for, the 38-year-old Geisel joined the U.S. Army and was deployed to the Fox studios in Hollywood—dubbed “Fort Fox”—to serve with some of the country’s top filmmakers, screenwriters, animators and journalists in Oscar-winning director Frank Capra’s Signal Corps unit.
Geisel worked to enliven the typical training manuals with his imaginative characters, such as an anthropomorphized malaria-carrying mosquito named Ann who eschewed whiskey and gin for the blood of soldiers and the “squander bug” who feasted on money that could have been better spent on war bonds.
He also worked alongside famed Warner Bros. animation directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng in creating cartoon shorts featuring Private Snafu—a bald, bumbling GI with the looks of Elmer Fudd and the voice of Bugs Bunny (Mel Blanc supplied the voices of both characters). In nearly 30 episodes, the misadventures of the inept soldier both entertained and educated servicemen by demonstrating the pitfalls of doing things exactly as they shouldn’t be done—such as disobeying orders, evading censors and leaking classified information."
Rest in eternal peace Dr. Seuss!
"Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by It's A Wonderful Life's Frank Capra and written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, produced by the United States Information & Education Division of the Army Services Forces in 1946, this authentic film proposes, "War with Germany ends in victory, victory leads to peace ... Sometimes ... Sometimes not."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v5QCGqDYGo
FYI LTC Bill Koski CW5 (Join to see) MSG Brad Sand SGM Steve Wettstein SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SP5 Mark Kuzinski SrA Christopher Wright PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO1 John Miller SP5 Robert Ruck SPC (Join to see) PO3 Steven Sherrill SN Greg Wright SCPO Morris Ramsey TSgt Joe C. Cpl Joshua Caldwell SGT Michael Thorin SP5 Dave (Shotgun) Shockley SPC Margaret Higgins
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