Dr. Seuss Goes to War
Part I
Part II
Part III
i. for changes, think in terms of replacing quotes, captions, certain objects
ii. the altered version should not look completely different from the original
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Format Requirements
¯ Typed
¯ Double-Spaced
¯ 12 point, Times New Roman font
¯ 1” margins (check under page setup)
¯ Paper heading on each cartoon
Version 2009
The Political Dr. Seuss
Theodor “Ted” Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His parents, Theodor Robert and Henrietta Seuss Geisel, were were first-generation German Americans, and the family also ran a successful brewing business. Although anti-German sentiments occasionally flared up during World War I, Ted and his sister Marnie experienced fairly idyllic childhoods.
While attending Dartmouth College in the 1920s, Ted Geisel served as editor of the school’s humor magazine Jack-O-Lantern, where he first used the pseudonym “Seuss” to sign his artwork. After graduation, he left for England’s Oxford University, intending to study to be a literature professor. It was at Oxford that he would meet his future wife, a fellow American student named Helen Palmer, and decide to become an artist instead of an academic.
Back in the United States, Helen and Ted married and settled in New York City, where Ted Geisel started his artistic career as a cartoonist for the New York weekly Judge and as an advertising artist for companies such as Standard Oil, for which he developed the ubiquitous ad slogan “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” In 1937, after receiving 27 rejections from 27 different publishers, Geisel published his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street. During World War II, Geisel contributed regularly to the progressive newspaper PM, denouncing such issues as anti-isolationism through his political cartoons. He also served in Frank Capra’s Signal Corps, making movies for the U.S. Army, including an animated film series featuring the character of “Private Snafu.” In the years following the war, Geisel also helped create the Academy Award-winning documentary Design for Death, seen in THE POLITICAL DR. SEUSS for the first time since its 1947 theatrical release.
In 1957, Geisel published The Cat in the Hat, the children’s primer that made him a household name as an acclaimed author and illustrator who later inspired generations of children with such classics as Horton Hears a Who!, Yertle the Turtle and You’re Only Old Once!
Dr. Seuss was a not only a successful children's author, but also a successful political cartoonist, lampooning current events during World War II for a progressive newspaper. Viewed as mere entertainment or children’s “funnies,” modern cartoons and comics often don’t get enough respect. But from caricature to commentary, from long-running print serials like Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” to televised satire such as Matt Groening’s “The Simpsons,” political cartoons have rightly taken their place on the page and screen as valid outlets for expressing political thought, championing activism and affecting social change through creative use of visual art.
Political cartooning in America dates back to before the Revolutionary War. Benjamin Franklin's "Join or Die,” which depicted the fractured American colonies through the severed parts of a snake, is commonly known as the first political cartoon in America. In 1754, Franklin used this image as a call to arms to support his plan for an intercolonial association.
During most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, political cartoons were relegated as stand-alone works that had the advantage of reaching both literate and illiterate audiences. Regarded as the father of political cartooning, Thomas Nast was the first artist whose work appeared on newspaper editorial pages. Nast’s cartoon series for Harper’s Weekly helped expose the William Tweed and Tammany Hall political embezzlement scandals of the 1870s, and, as legend has it, even helped to imprison and convict Tweed because it made his image so recognizable.
In the twentieth century, political cartoons have helped shape public opinion on issues from Prohibition to Watergate. Because of its unique mix of the pictorial, the artistic, the journalistic and the editorial, the medium has been especially successful due to its succinctness, eye-catching imagery and ability to make political commentary beyond the boundaries of plain text. Today, political cartoons are featured in magazines and newspapers, on opinions pages and comics pages, where popular cartoon series such as “Doonesbury” and “The Boondocks” reach hundreds of thousands of daily readers. While Dr. Seuss's style is unparalled, cartooning continues to shape our perception of politics and current events.
The Political Dr. Seuss. PBS. Independent Lens. 30 March 2008 <http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/politicaldrseuss/dr.html#>