The World of Dr. Seuss

The World of Seuss

Someone once said, “What Walt Disney was to entertainment, Theodor Seuss Geisel was to art and literature” (Chase). Theodor Seuss Geisel, more commonly known as Dr. Seuss, was an intelligent, imaginative, and creative man who reinvented the way children read. He wrote stories that took the youngsters into a whole new world and taught them vital lessons about life and humankind. He reinvented the way many children learned how to read and he is also thought to have given people “a unique visual language” (Chase). Dr. Seuss is a creative genius in the visual arts field of illustration and literature because he created a new way to illustrate books, revolutionized the writing of children’s books through rhyming and made up words which helped generations of kids learn to read and he paved the way for cinematographers to bring his many works of art to life.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts to Theodor Geisel, a brewmaster, and Henrietta Seuss Geisel (“Mini Bio: Dr. Seuss”). As a child, Geisel enjoyed spending time at the zoo and studying the animals with his mother who would then encourage him to draw the animals on his bedroom walls. His great love for those animals also led to his interest in taxidermy as a teenager. Many said that Geisel had a “personality to be encouraged” growing up and also noted that he was a faithful friend and devoted son (Chase). After graduation high school, Geisel went to Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, he landed the position of editor in chief of the school’s humor magazine called Jack-O-Lantern. Sadly, after being caught drinking in his dorm room with some friends, Geisel was kicked off of the magazine staff but continued to write for them under the name “Seuss” (“Mini Bio: Dr. Seuss”). Upon graduating from Dartmouth, Geisel moved to England to attend Oxford University to study becoming a teacher. While attending Oxford, he met his future wife Helen, who drove him to draw cartoons and write instead of teaching. Geisel dropped out of Oxford, married Helen and then moved back to the United States with his new bride (“Mini Bio: Dr. Seuss”, “Helen Palmer, Children’s Writer and Wife of Dr. Seuss, is Dead”).

Upon returning to the U.S., Geisel decided to be a cartoonist full time. Some of his work was published in magazines like TIME and Vanity Fair. He also held jobs at the New York Weekly Judge and the Saturday Night Post before working in the advertisement department at Standard Oil for fifteen years. When working at Standard Oil, Geisel’s ad for a bug spray called Flit, took off and proved his mastery (“Mini Bio: Dr. Seuss”). By the time World War II rolled around, Geisel was committed to helping out in the war. Although he was too old for draft and could not be in direct combat, he helped out in the filmmaking unit by writing and directing scripts that focused on GI morale and morals. He also published many politically charged cartoons during this time in his life (Chase). After the war, Theodor and Helen bought an old observation tower in California where he would do most of his most famous writings. His wife noted that he would write for eight hours a day and only take breaks to tend to his beloved garden. That year, Geisel published several children’s books that grabbed the attention of Houghton Mifflin and Random House who, after LIFE Magazine criticized the reading levels of children, asked Geisel to write a children’s book using 220 vocabulary words. The result was the book The Cat in the Hat, which helped ensure his spot in children’s literature for the rest of his life (“Mini Bio: Dr. Seuss”). Over the years following, Geisel wrote many other children’s books that today, have been brought to life by animators.