1904-1991
Theodor Geisel Seuss, more commonly known as Dr. Seuss the great children's literature author. Seuss was born on March 2, 1904 in Massachusetts, his father worked and his mother stayed at home. Seuss credited his mother as the first person of inspiration for his interest in rhyming and literature, he said she would sing rhymes to soothe him to sleep. He says that his mother and much of his childhood experiences in Massachusetts served as influence when he wrote his books. Seuss left home at 18 to receive his education from Dartmouth College. At college, Seuss soon became the member of the college humor magazine and was later promoted editor. Unfortunately, Seuss was caught drinking in his dorm and was forced to resign from all extracurricular activities at the college. This resignation did not stop Seuss writing, after getting forced out of the magazine he came up with the idea of still writing works for the magazine but instead of signing it Theodor Seuss, he would just sign it Seuss. This is how his identity began. After years of education, Seuss started getting associated with a few different magazines such as Vanity Fair and Liberty. He would send in humorous articles which led to him creating advertisements for companies such as Flit, Holly Sugar, Standard Oil, Ford, and GE. Seuss then made his first appearance as a cartoonist on The Saturday Evening Post in 1927. After the magazines, Seuss transitioned into more cartoons and animations. He got involved in illustrating for the US army due to WWII, there he drew over 400 cartoons. Seuss political cartoons about the war were very controversial and racially slurred. Today, Seuss' political cartoons get some attention due to their biases. Seuss also got into filmmaking becoming the commander of the Animation Department by making training films for the army. This is where Seuss got his real start in animations. When the war ended, Seuss decided to move out to California and continue his love of literature by writing children's books. His first published book "And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street" was rejected 27 times before it was published at all in 1937. In 1945, an article in TIME magazine about children's reading levels sparked one of Seuss' greatest works. The article talked about how children did not understand fundamental vocabulary words so Seuss was approached to write a book using a list of only 220 vocabulary words. After carefully choosing his words, "Cat in the Hat" was published in 1957. After this, Seuss career pretty much took off from there. He published "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" the same year as "Cat in the Hat". Then in 1960, he published "Green Eggs and Ham" and "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish". By the end of his career he had a total of 60 children's books published and had earned multiple different awards. The last book he published was actually published the year before he died in 1991. Seuss died of throat cancer at his home in California at the age of 87. His life was full and his name will never be forgotten. The legend of Dr. Seuss will forever live on. |