Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)

Theodor Seuss Geisel, born March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts, was an American children’s author, illustrator, animator, and cartoonist. He became known around the world under the pen name Dr. Seuss, writing and illustrating more than 60 books. By the time of his death on September 24, 1991, those books had sold more than 600 million copies and had been translated into more than 20 languages.

Geisel grew up near Mulberry Street in Springfield, later made famous in his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published in 1937. He was the son of Theodor Robert Geisel and Henrietta Geisel, whose maiden name was Seuss. His father managed the family brewery and later supervised Springfield’s public park system after the brewery closed because of Prohibition. The family was of German descent, and Geisel and his sister Marnie faced anti-German prejudice from other children after World War I began in 1914. He was raised as a Missouri Synod Lutheran and remained in that denomination throughout his life.

At Dartmouth College, Geisel joined the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern and became its editor-in-chief. After he was caught drinking gin with friends during Prohibition, the dean ordered him to resign from extracurricular activities, including the magazine. To keep contributing without the administration knowing, he began signing his work “Seuss.” He later used “Dr. Seuss” while at Dartmouth and as a graduate student at Lincoln College, Oxford. At Dartmouth, professor W. Benfield Pressey encouraged his writing, and Geisel later called him his “big inspiration for writing.” At Oxford, Helen Palmer, his future wife, urged him to pursue drawing rather than becoming an English teacher, noticing that his notebooks were filled with “fabulous animals.”

Geisel left Oxford in 1927 and returned to the United States to build a career in magazines, books, and advertising. His first nationally published cartoon appeared in The Saturday Evening Post that year, and he soon became a writer and illustrator for Judge. His work also appeared in Vanity Fair, Life, and other publications. Advertising gave him a wide public audience, especially the Flit campaign for Standard Oil of New Jersey, whose catchphrase “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” entered popular culture. He also illustrated campaigns for Standard Oil products, Ford Motor Company, NBC Radio Network, and Holly Sugar.

After And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, Geisel’s children’s books became some of the most widely read of the twentieth century. After a World War II pause in which he drew political cartoons and worked in the animation and film department of the United States Army, he returned to children’s literature. His later books included If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who! (1954), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), The Lorax (1971), The Butter Battle Book (1984), and Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (1990). His work led to eleven television specials, five feature films, a Broadway musical, and four television series. He received two Primetime Emmy Awards and, in 1984, a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. His birthday, March 2, became National Read Across America Day, a reading initiative created by the National Education Association, a fitting marker for a writer whose books helped generations learn the pleasure of reading.