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Cohen, Charles D. The Seuss, the Whole Seuss and Nothing But the Seuss: A Visual Biography of

Theodor Seuss Geisel. Random House Children's Books, 2004.

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Theodor Seuss Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss, was born on this fateful day.

"Two years later, on Wednesday, March 2, 1904, the future Dr. Seuss-Theodor 'Ted' Seuss Geisel- began his life..." (15).

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(2) His Earliest Inspirations - Sometime around 1907

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(2) His Earliest Inspirations - Sometime around 1907

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Theodor, or Ted, read a lot of books written by Hillaire Belloc that were aimed at teaching children obedience with twisted stories. Ted did not resonate with the contents of the book itself but he enjoyed the rhyming and improbable events that inspires his later style.

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(3) First Published Work - February 7, 1919

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(3) First Published Work - February 7, 1919

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His first published work was a parody of the poem "O Captain! My Captain!" and titled "O Latin" in the Recorder.

"One of his first published pieces was 'O Latin,' a parody of the Whitman poem 'O Captain! My Captain!' (25).

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(4) New Beginnings at Dartmouth - September 22, 1921

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(4) New Beginnings at Dartmouth - September 22, 1921

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Ted was accepted into Dartmouth where he lived in a hall with L. Bronner Jr., Cornelius Klutz and Herbert Franklin Abrams. One of his neighbors, L. Bronner Jr., was a member of the literary-arts magazine, the Jack-O-Lantern, and Ted took full advantage of that fact and submitted work that was published in the first issue of the year. Just 2 months in, Ted was elected class treasure and chosen as an art editor of the freshman publication. He later joined the art staff of the magazine where he drew a variety of cartoons that were based on puns.

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Hanover, New Hampshire : Dartmouth College

Copyright Trustees of Dartmouth College

PUBLISHED IN COMMEMORATION
OF THE ONE-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
OF HIS BIRTH * MARCH 2, 19O4-2OO4

Edited by Edward Connery Lathem
together with an introduction
by President James Wright
HANOVER * NEW HAMPSHIRE
Dartmouth College
is of course a pseudonym, one known
to millions upon millions of adults and children alike,
in the United States and throughout the world.

Both born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts,
he attended Springfield's Central High School,
where among his special extracurricular concerns was
the student newspaper, the Central Recorder, for which
he did articles, verse, humorous squibs, and occasional
cartoons, as well as serving as one of the paper's editors.

Accordingly, in the autumn of 1921, Geisel headed
for Hanover, some hundred and thirty miles up the
Connecticut River from Springfield.

And what was to prove, as viewed in retrospect,
especially a stimulus to him at Dartmouth?-

"He's the only person I took any creative writing
courses from ever, anywhere, and he was very kind
and encouraging.

"I remember being in a big argument at one of
Ben's seminars. I maintained that subject matter wasn't
as important as method. (I don't believe that at all now.)

From the outset at Dartmouth, Freshman Geisel
gravitated toward association with the humor magazine,
Jack-o-Lantern.-

"That was an extension of my activities in high
school - and a lot less dangerous than doing somersaults
off the ski jump. I think I had something in
Jack-o-Lantern within a couple of months after I got
to college."

"Norman, at the same time, was writing a
novel. And the further he got involved with his
novel, the less time he had for his Jack-o-Lantern. So,

pretty soon I was essentially writing the whole thing
myself.

The general practice of Jack-o-Lantern was that
its literary content appeared unsigned, a circumstance
that renders it impossible to compile today
a comprehensive listing of Geisel's writings for its
pages. The author himself has only vague recollections
of what he in fact wrote for the publication, although
he does remember that certain contributions
were written jointly with Maclean, including ones
that came about in a singular fashion.-

"Norman and I had a rather peculiar method of
creating literary gems. Hunched behind his typewriter,
he would bang out a line of words.

"Sometimes he'd tell me what he'd written,
sometimes not. But, then, he'd always say, 'The next
line's yours' And, always, I'd supply it.

"This may have made for rough reading. But it
was great sport writing."

The art work included in Jack-o-Lantern was,
unlike its "lit," usually signed, and the magazine's issues
of 1921-1925 are liberally sprinkled with cartoons
bearing explicit evidence of having come from Ted
Geisel's pen.

The 1920s were seemingly "the era of the pun,"
and many of the individual cartoons are found to
have involved puns or currently popular expressions.

In summing up his assessment he says:

"The best I can say about the Jacko of this era is
that they were doing just as badly on the Harvard
Lampoon, the Yale Record, and the Columbia Jester."

During his student days Geisel also went into
print from time to time in another campus publication,
The Dartmouth, "America's Oldest College
Newspaper."-

"Whit Campbell was editor of The Daily Dartmouth
at the time. I filled-in occasionally and did a
few journalistic squibs with him.

"This did little to affect the history of journal
ism in America. But it did cement the strongest personal
friendship I made at Dartmouth."

There were two especially noteworthy aspects
of the extensive work Geisel did for Dartmouth's
humor magazine.

"This was the year I discovered the excitement
of 'marrying' words to pictures.

"It took me almost a quarter of a century to find
the proper way to get my words and pictures married.
At Dartmouth I couldn't even get them engaged."

The other particularly significant feature of
Geisel's Jack-o-Lantern career relates to the spring of
1925, when apparently he first used the signature
"Seuss." The circumstances diat surrounded his employment
of the later-famous pseudonym, he outlines
as follows.-

"The night before Easter of my senior year there
were ten of us gathered in my room at the Randall
Club. We had a pint of gin for ten people, so that
proves nobody was really drinking.

"But Pa Randall, who hated merriment, called
Chief Rood, the chief of police, and he himself in person
raided us.

Laycock, and we were all put on probation for defying
the laws of Prohibition, and especially on Easter
Evening."

The disciplinary action imposed by Dean
Laycock meant that the editor-in-chief of Jack-o-
Lantern was relieved forthwith of his official responsibilities
for running the magazine. There existed,
however, the practical necessity of helping to bring
out its succeeding numbers during the remainder of
the academic year.

The final four Jacko issues in the spring of 1925
contained, accordingly, a number of Geisel cartoons
anonymously inserted or carrying utterly fanciful
cognomens (such as "L. Burbank" "Thos. Mott

Osborne '27," and "D. G. Rossetti '25"), and two cartoons,
in the number of April twenty-second, had
affixed to them his own middle name (in one case
"Seuss" alone and in the other "T. Seuss").-

"I remember my father writing me and asking,
'What are you going to do after you graduate?'

"I wrote back, 'Don't you worry about me, I'm
going to win a thing called the "Campbell Fellowship
in English Literature" and I'm going to Oxford'

"He read the letter rather hurriedly. The editor
of the Springfield Union lived across the street from us
(that was Maurice Sherman; he was also a Dartmouth
man), and my father ran across the street and
said: 'Hey, what do you know? Ted won a fellowship

called the "Campbell Fellowship" and he's going to
Oxford.'

In the autumn of 1925, Geisel entered Oxford as
a member of Lincoln College.-

"My tutor was A. J. Carlyle, the nephew of the
great, frightening Thomas Carlyle. I was surprised to
see him alive. He was surprised to see me in any form.

"He was the oldest man I've ever seen riding a
bicycle. I was the only man he'd ever seen who never
ever should have come to Oxford.

"Well, he was a great historian, and he quickly
discovered that I didn't know any history. Somehow
or other I got through high school and Dartmouth
without taking one history course.

"That was the man who really drove me out of
Oxford. I'll never forget his two-hour lecture on the
punctuation of King Lear.

"It got unbelievable. I got up, went back to my
room, and started packing."

A notebook used by Geisel during his time at
Oxford has survived among his papers.-

was not, however, without its diversions and recreations -
one such having been, actually, an outgrowth
of Miltonic studies.-

"While I was at Oxford I illustrated a great hunk
of Paradise Lost.

"Somebody took it into a back room and then
came back with it very promptly and said, 'This isn't
quite the Blackwell type of humor'

"So, I was thrown out. But I got my revenge
years later.

full of my books. It had apparently become 'the
Blackwell type of humor.'"

"It was she who finally convinced me that flying
cows were a better future than tracing long and short
E through Anglo Saxon.

"She was the one who convinced me that I wasn't
for pedagogy at all.

Upon quitting Oxford, Geisel did engage
briefly in one final scholastic interlude, this time in
Paris.-

"He talked to me at the end of the lecture and
began selling me on going to study with him at the
Sorbonne. And, after I left Oxford, I did so.

"I registered at the Sorbonne, and I went over to
his house to find out exactly what he wanted me to do.

and booking myself a passage on a cattie boat to
Corsica.

"I remember a long period in which I drew
nothing but gargoyles. They were easier than Mona
Lisas."

And what of those months of junketing?-

"It turned out to be not so great, so I boiled it
down in the Great American Short Story. It wasn't
very great in that form either.

"Two years later I boiled it down once more and
sold it as a two-line joke to Judge."

Home once again in Springfield, Geisel lived
with his parents and began submitting cartoons to
national magazines.-

father was hoping I'd become self-sufficient and get
out of the house, because I was working at his desk."

The drawing was signed simply "Seuss" by its
draftsman-humorist, resurrecting the pseudonym he
had used in the Dartmouth Jack-o-Lantern two years
earlier.-

Actually, the Post in publishing his cartoon accorded
"Seuss" no pseudonymity whatsoever, for it
supplied the identification "Drawn by Theodor Seuss
Geisel" in a byline of type, right along the edge of the
drawing itself.-

"When the Post paid me twenty-five bucks for
that picture, I informed my parents that my future
success was assured; I would quickly make my fame
and fortune in The Saturday Evening Post.

thirty-seven years before they bought a second Seuss:
an article in 1964 called 'If At First You Don't
Succeed - Quit!'"

But success during the summer of 1927 in placing
something with The Saturday Evening Post was a
cause for great elation - and, moreover, for a decision
on the cartoonist's part to leave Springfield.-

"Bubbling over with self-assurance, I told my
parents they no longer had to feed or clothe me.

"I had a thousand dollars saved up from the
Jack-o-Lantern (in those days college magazines made
a profit), and with this I jumped onto the New York,
New Haven, & Hartford Railroad; and I invaded the
Big City, where I knew that all the editors would be
waiting to buy my wares."

them out, so they wouldn't nibble us while we slept.
God! what a place.

"And I wasn't selling any wares. I tried to do so
phisticated things for Vanity Fair; I tried unsophisticated
things for the Daily Mirror.

"I wasn't getting anywhere at all, until John
suddenly said one day, 'There's a guy called "Beef
Vernon," of my class at Dartmouth, who has just
landed a job as a salesman to sell advertising for
Judge.

"'His job won't last long, because nobody buys
any advertising in Judge. But maybe, before Beef gets
fired, we can con him into introducing you to
Norman Anthony, the editor.'"

The result of the Geisel-Anthony meeting was
the offer of a job as a staff writer-artist for the humor
magazine, at a salary of seventy-five dollars per week
- enough encouragement to cause Ted Geisel and
Helen Palmer (who had been teaching during the
year since the completion of her Oxford studies) to
marry. The wedding took place at Westfield, New
Jersey, on November 29,1927.-

the magazine went semi-bust the next week, and my
salary went down to fifty dollars.

" Judge had practically no advertising. And the
advertisers it attracted seldom paid for the ads with
money; they paid the magazine with due bills. And
that's what we, the artists and writers, ended up with
in lieu of salary.

"So, Helen and I spent many weeks of our first
married year in sumptuous suites in Atlantic City -
where we didn't want to be at all.

cause I didn't have to balance any checkbooks - or
file any income tax.

"How can you file an income tax when you're
being paid in cases of White Rock soda?"

And where did the newlywed Geisels set up
housekeeping in New York?-

"Oh, we went to a place across from a stable in
Hell's Kitchen, on 18th Street.

"Seuss" work in Judge consisted not only of cartoons.-

a combination, about fifty-fifty; the articles always
tied in with drawings ."

Among these combination pieces, extending
the type of thing he had begun doing as an undergraduate
at Dartmouth, Geisel produced for Judge a
succession of regular contributions signed in a way
that brought his pseudonym into the final form of its
evolution.-

"I started to do a feature called 'Boids and
Beasties.' It was a mock-zoological thing, and I put
the 'Dr.' on the 'Seuss' to make me sound more professorial."

"Dr. Seuss" soon found his way into other magazines
of the day, besides Judge, including Liberty,
College Humor, and Life. He even teamed up, at one
point, with humorist Corey Ford in a collaboration
for Vanity Fair that was, in the end, to be abandoned
out of pure frustration.-

Vanity Fair, but I gave that up because it got a little
ludicrous. The art director of Vanity Fair was more
concerned with style than content.

"The last thing I did with Corey was a spoof on
political cartooning in the 1890s - a Boss Tweed type
thing.

"Corey and I remained good friends, but we
didn't work together after that."

An occurrence early in Geisel's period of association
with Judge was to have a particular impact on
his subsequent career.-

"I'd been working for Judge about four months
when I drew this accidental cartoon which changed
my whole life. It was an insecticide gag.

Dragon. And just after I'd sprayed the whole castle
with... .'

"With what? I wondered.

"There were two well-known insecticides. One
was Flit and one was Fly Tox. So, I tossed a coin. It
came up heads, for Flit.

"So, the caption read, '... another Dragon.
And just after I'd sprayed the whole castle with Flit!"

"Here's where luck came in.

"Very few people ever bought Judge. It was continually
in bankruptcy - and everybody else was
bankrupt, too.

"She opened Judge while waiting to get her hair
dressed, and she found this picture. She ripped it out
of the magazine, put it in her reticule, took it home,
bearded her husband with it, and said, 'Lincoln,
you've got to hire this young man; it's the best Flit ad
I've ever seen.'

"He said, 'Go away' He said, 'You're my wife,
and you're to have nothing to do with my business'

"So, she pestered him for about two weeks, and
finally he said, 'All right, I'll have him in, and I'll buy
one picture'

"He had me in. I drew one picture - which I
captioned 'Quick, Henry, the Flit!' - and it was published.

"Then, they hired me to do two more - and
seventeen years later I was still doing them.

"They had a product called 'Esso Marine' a lubricating
oil for boats, and they didn't have a lot of
money to spend on advertising.

party, and they would write our commercials for us.
So, we would end up with national coverage about,
'The Seuss Navy met... .' And, then, they would have
to explain it, by talking about Esso Marine.

"At the time war was declared, in 1941, we had
the biggest navy in the world. We commissioned the
whole Standard Oil fleet, and we also had, for example,
the Queen Mary and most of the ships of die U.S.
lines.

"Then, an interesting thing happened. I left to
join the Army. And somebody said: 'Thank God,
Geisel's gone, he was wasting a great opportunity. He
wasn't selling the product. We have Seuss Navy hats,
and we have Seuss Navy glasses and Seuss Navy
flags.' He said, 'These things should carry advertising
on them.'

"They put advertising on them, and the Navy
promptly died. The fun had gone out of it, and the
Seuss Navy sank."

"My contract with the Standard Oil Company
was an exclusive one and forbade me from doing an
awful lot of stuff

"They let me work for magazines, because I'd
already established that. But it crimped future expansion
into other things."

Restless to explore new avenues of activity,
Geisel ultimately hit upon the notion of preparing a
volume for children.-

"The book was originally published in England,
where it was called Schoolboy Howlers. Some smart
person at Viking Press in New York (I think it was
Marshall Best) brought out a reprint of the English
edition, under the title Boners.

"Whereupon hundreds of teachers in the U.S. A.
began sending in boners from their examination papers.
And the Boner Business boomed."

Boners and its sequel, More Boners, were both
published in 1931.-

"This is the point when I first began to realize
that if I hoped to succeed in the book world, I'd have
to write, as well as draw."

"I was on a long, stormy crossing of the
Atlantic, and it was too rough to go out on deck.

Everybody in the ship just sat in the bar for a week,
listening to the engines turn over: da-da-ta-ta, da-da-
ta-ta, da-da-ta-ta....

"Six months later I found I had a book on my
hands, called And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry
Street. So, what to do with it?

"He said, 'What's that under your arm?'

"I said, 'That's a book that no one will publish.
I'm lugging it home to burn.'

"Then, I asked Mike, 'What are you doing?'

"He said, 'This morning I was appointed juvenile
editor of Vanguard Press, and we happen to be standing
in front of my office; would you like to come inside?'

"So, we went inside, and he looked at the book
and he took me to the president of Vanguard Press.
Twenty minutes later we were signing contracts.

"That's one of the reasons I believe in luck. If I'd
been going down the other side of Madison Avenue,
I would be in the dry-cleaning business today."

And what reception did the public accord And
to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, when the
book was released in 1937?-

"In those days children's books didn't sell very
well, and it became a bestseller at ten thousand
copies, believe it or not. (Today, at Beginner Books, if
we're bringing out a doubtful book, we print twenty
thousand copies.)

"But, we were in the Depression era, and
Mulberry Street cost a dollar - which was then a lot of
money.

"Clifton Fadiman, I think, was partially respon-
sible for my going on in children's books. He wrote a
review for The New Yorker, a one-sentence review.

"I remember that impressed me very much: If
the great Kip Fadiman likes it, I'll have to do another."

Another he did do ( The 500 Hats of Bartholomew
Cubbins, in 1938) and then another and another and
another - to the point that there have been to date
nearly fifty volumes of his authorship, in addition to
widely acclaimed motion pictures and animated

specials for television. Besides this, Theodor Seuss
Geisel presides over and gives editorial direction to a
major publishing enterprise, Beginner Books, a division
of Random House.

"Creator and fancier of fanciful beasts; your
affinity for flying elephants and man-eating mosquitoes
makes us rejoice you were not around to be
Director of Admissions on Mr. Noah's ark. But our
rejoicing in your career is far more positive: as author
and artist you single-handedly have stood as St.
George between a generation of exhausted parents
and the demon dragon of unexhausted children on a
rainy day. There was an inimitable wriggle in your
work long before you became a producer of motion
pictures and animated cartoons; and, as always with
the best of humor, behind the fun there has been intelligence,
kindness, and a feel for humankind. An
Academy Award-winner and holder of the Legion of
Merit for war film work, you have stood these many

years in the academic shadow of your learned friend
Dr. Seuss; and because we are sure the time has come
when the good doctor would want you to walk by
his side as a full equal, and because your College
delights to acknowledge the distinction of a loyal son,
Dartmouth confers on you her Doctorate of Humane
Letters."

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Hanover, New Hampshire : Dartmouth College Copyright Trustees of Dartmouth College PUBLISHED IN COMMEMORATIONOF THE ONE-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARYOF HIS BIRTH * MARCH 2, 19O4-2OO4 Edited by Edward Connery Lathemtogether with an introductionby President James Wright HANOVER * NEW HAMPSHIREDartmouth College is of course a pseudonym, one known to millions upon millions of adults and children alike, in the United States and throughout the world.

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The Jack-O-Lantern showcases Ted's imaginative mind through his creation of wacky and wild animals. Here, he created characters with exaggerated details and fantastical elements that prelude his later style as Dr. Seuss.

"...the Jack-O-Lantern provides the first glimpses into the strange beasts that would later become such an integral part of Ted's children's books" (41).

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(6) A Seussian Pseudonym - April 25, 1925

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(6) A Seussian Pseudonym - April 25, 1925

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On April 25, 1925, Ted signed his cartoons with Seuss, making it the first appearance of Seuss as his pseudonym.

"This was the first time that Ted has ever used his middle name-his mother's maiden name-to identify any of his works" (59).

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After graduation at Dartmouth, Ted eventually went to England to pursue graduate work in English. He was then introduced to Helen Marion Palmer where he became engaged to her after a few months. He would then marry her in November of 1927.

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Ted's first nationally published cartoon was based on the Lawrence of Arabia and featured people riding upon 2 camels in a desert being pulled by a black person with extremely exaggerated details that are racist.

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Ted signed a cartoon with the moniker, "Dr. Seuss," for the first time in a 1928 Judge cartoon. He also began to incorporate more outlandish and bizarre elements in his cartoons that would be key for his later style.

"The first artwork that Ted Geisel ever signed as "Dr. Seuss" appeared six months into his time with Judge" (86).

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After creating a few series for Judge, he created cartoons that featured an insecticide known as Flit. This led to his partnership with Flit and the first advertisement for it on May 31, 1928. The advertisements exploded in popularity and a collection of them was published in September of 1929, the first time that something was published with exclusively Dr. Seuss' cartoons.

"The advertisements themselves became so popular over the next two years that, by September 1929, a collection of them was printed..." (85).

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With his newfound fame, Dr. Seuss had access to a multitude of new opportunities. He was tasked with creating a variety of commissioned paintings, oil murals and even a mural upon the walls of a room inside a house.

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His success with drawing cartoons for advertisements continued when he began to draw cartoons for Esso, a group of lubricants for cars and engines. When Esso began to enter the boating world, they started with a booklet ad campaign known as Secrets of the Deep which contained Dr. Seuss' illustrations and text. Eventually, in 1936, Dr. Seuss created the famous Seuss Navy.

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Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to all as Dr. Seuss, the beloved children's book author and illustrator, began his career as cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life and other publications before moving into advertising; most notably for Standard Oil, the parent company of Esso Marine Oil and Lubricants.

As ad man for Esso, Seuss created a menagerie of sea-dwelling creatures and a host of mariner characters that appear in numerous advertisements in boating publications such as Yachting and Motor Boating. Captain Taylor, a mariner who often dispensed tongue-in-cheek boating advice, and perhaps the most well-known of the characters, is seen here adorning a roving advertisement for Burr's Yacht Station (New London, CT) during the Harvard-Yale Rowing Race in June of 1935. MSM Rosenfeld Collection. Acc. # 1984.187.71507F

When asked to create a campaign for Esso Marine Lube for the 1936 New York International [Motor] Boat Show, Seuss and his colleagues created 15 certificates stating that the selectee had been named an Admiral in Seuss' Navy. The inductees, especially in the beginning, were celebrity boaters like Vincent Astor. The aim, much like today's advertising campaigns, was to attach the Esso Marine brand to the celebrity, "If it's good enough for [celebrity], it's got to be good." The campaign was supposed to be somewhat in jest, but the selectees hung their certificates up in their yachts and soon everyone wanted to be part of Seuss' Navy, where every man was an Admiral. Certificate: MSM Acc. # 1988.107.35

With growing interest in becoming a member of Seuss' Navy, the simple ad campaign became a full-fledged feature at the shows. Seuss' Navy was deemed the "Fun-Makers" and sponsored boat races, games, contests, and hosted an annual "Seuss Navy Luncheon and Frolic" MSM Rosenfeld Collection. Acc. # 1984.187.85312F.

Esso marketers and salesmen even put on short plays created by Seuss. In one of Seuss' "Little Dramas of the Deep," "The demon sludge fish is the villain... an enlightening story for those embryo mariners who would gamble on lubricants..."- a big hit.

Seuss went on to create three 30-page Seuss Navy story booklets - with rhyming text. Seuss later said his experience working at Standard Oil taught him "conciseness and how to marry pictures with words." Seuss published his first children's book in 1937.

The Navy sank by 1949 as a result of what Seuss claims was a "casualty of its own commercialism."

Esso Marine Advertisements

Emily Mayotte

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Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to all as Dr. Seuss, the beloved children's book author and illustrator, began his career as cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life and other publications before moving into advertising; most notably for Standard Oil, the parent company of Esso Marine Oil and Lubricants.

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(13) And to Think That I Saw it Published - September 1937

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(13) And to Think That I Saw it Published - September 1937

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The first children's book written by Dr. Seuss was published in September of 1937. And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was a book that showcased the wildly imaginative mind of Dr. Seuss.

"In September 1937, under the revised title And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, Ted's first children's book was published..." (184).

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And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street | Dr. Seuss Read Aloud to Music | MFSB

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(14) Political Issues and Stances - June 1942

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(14) Political Issues and Stances - June 1942

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Dr. Seuss used his cartoons to help combat racial prejudice that was very prevalent during the time. He would depict Uncle Sam spreading racial injustice to the youth. He would also make cartoons that showed Hitler's cruel treatment of Jews.

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(15) A New Path Forward - January 7, 1943

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(15) A New Path Forward - January 7, 1943

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Ted was inducted into the army in January and soon became a captain. In the army, he helped to create Private SNAFU, a character in army newsreels. He used humor to help sell army policy and teamed up with animators to help educate troops. In the army, he would eventually become a Major and then a Lieutenant Colonel. He was discharged on January 8, 1946.

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Ted began to work with Warner Bros.' West Coast studios but later switched to RKO. Alongside Helen, he developed Design for Death which won the Best Feature-Length Documentary.

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After creating The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, Dr. Seuss said that he hated the film and the time he spent on it. The film had a plot that parallels the actions of Adolf Hitler, with Dr. T as a villain that brainwashes people to fulfill his vision. In the film, a lot of his iconic style could be seen with the props and costumes.

"...the consensus is that Ted abhorred both the film and the experience" (286).

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Despite using the alias, "Dr. Seuss," for decades, Dr. Seuss did not have a doctorate until 1955 when Dartmouth College awarded him an honorary doctorate. He was now officially, Dr. Seuss.

"...the 'Doctor' became official when his alma mater, Dartmouth College, awarded Ted a 'Doctorate of Humane Letters' as an honorary degree" (316).

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In 1957, The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was published. The Cat was an icon that took decades to evolve into the character we know today. The Grinch on the other hand, represents Dr. Seuss' hatred for the materialism of Christmas. In the end, these books became staples of children's literature.

"...The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!-were published in the same year!" (321).

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How the Grinch Stole Christmas (20th Anniversary) | Jim Carrey Has a Heart Two Sizes Too Small

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Dr. Seuss' last book, Oh, the Places You'll Go!, was published in 1990 and it would become a beloved book that was widely known. His death happened a year later on September 24th, where he died at the age of 87.