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Theodor Seuss Geisel wasn’t actually a doctor (at least not until his alma mater, Dartmouth, gave him an honorary PhD), but his unique poetic meter and leap-off-the-page illustrations made him one of the most successful children’s writers in history (over 220 million books sold). Here are five stories about the man behind such classics as The Cat in the Hat and Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
1. Dr. Seuss came from a long line of German brewmasters, which perhaps explains how he came to throw a drunken bash during his Dartmouth days. Due to school policy (and also federal law, since Prohibition forbade drinking in those days), Ted’s excellent adventure got him fired from his position at The Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, the college’s humor magazine. But the wily Geisel never let The Man keep him down: He kept writing for the Jack-O-Lantern, adopting the pseudonym “Seuss” (his middle name).
2. In 1960, publisher Bennett Cerf bet Dr. Seuss $50 that Seuss couldn’t write a book using only 50 different words. So Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham, which became an instant picture book classic. (Incidentally, Cerf apparently never paid up.)
Green Eggs and Ham marked the apex of Seuss’s minimalist-vocabulary period, and it was an awfully impressive feat (we used 50 different words just to tell you about it).
3. Before he started speaking for the trees, Dr. Seuss was working for big oil. For fifteen years he wrote and designed ads for the corporate monolith Standard Oil. In a series of ads hawking Standard’s pesticide Flit, Geisel coined the popular catchphrase, “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” which was sort of the “Mikey likes it!” of its time.
4. When Dr. Seuss Goes to War, a collection of Geisel’s World War II–era cartoons created for PM magazine, was published in 1999, the American public was stunned. How could the author of peace-loving, Truffula Tree–hugging children’s books have penned wartime cartoons that attacked Japanese Americans and depicted the Japanese as bucktoothed buffoons? Some argued that Seuss was only reflecting his times; others argued that racism is racism (regardless of whether it’s in a box or with a fox).
5. While it would be an exaggeration to say that Dr. Seuss singlehandedly ended the Cold War, The Butter Battle Book was one of the most influential anti-arms-race books of the ’80s. Telling the story of the absurd war between the Yooks and the Zooks (whose sole disagreement is whether one ought to eat bread butter side up or butter side down), Seuss subtly challenged the Reagan administration’s emphasis on defense over social welfare programs. For six months, the book was on the New York Times Best Seller list—for adults.
This article was excerpted from Scatterbrained, a mental_floss book. You can pick up a copy in our store.
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Comments (11)
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i have all of my old dr.seuss books, and still read them even though i’m 24 years old.
just never gets old.
posted by Em on 9-17-2008 at 1:26 am
I loved Seuss (which he pronounced to rhyme with “Joyce”) when I was a kid and loved him again when his books helped my daughter learn to read at the age of 2! It is, however, ridiculous to assert that “The Butter Battle Book” had any part in ending the Cold War. That was purely Reagan’s policies! Plus, I tend to believe that whether you’re going to live as a free nation or under a communist dictatorship is a LITTLE more important than whether you like your bread butter-side up or butter-side down (I’m an up man, myself…)
posted by Richard Dixon on 9-17-2008 at 6:27 am
Yay! 8/10.
I had the pleasure a while back of meeting Mr. Gary Owens at a party. He told us a lot of stories about Dr. Seuss. Sadly, the only one I can recall is that Seuss is actually pronounced “soy-s”, but since everyone was already pronouncing it as “soo-s”, he left it at that.
posted by ArtF on 9-17-2008 at 7:47 am
Em: I still read all my Dr. Seuss books, too, and I’m 56. As someone who was always very small, “Horton Hears A Who” was very important to me as a child, and I still love it!
posted by Judy on 9-17-2008 at 10:14 am
I read Dr. Suess to my 3 year old every night. I still love the books and they bring back memories of my childhood.
posted by Bill on 9-17-2008 at 11:30 am
When I was a child. Going to my school’s library was like a treasure hunt. I would search and search until I found a new Dr. Suess book. I never knew what I would find, because they were located by titles, but every find was gold to a child like me.
posted by Morris on 9-18-2008 at 1:13 pm
Dr. Seuss and Robin Williams — separated at birth?
posted by Doug on 9-21-2008 at 5:09 pm
My mom used to always bring up the fact that as a young child I always brought a book to bed with me, never a teddy bear or baby doll, even when very young.
When we moved a few years ago, she was so excited to have found what was apparently my favorite bedtime companion, and share it with me again.
Corners gently worn, a gentle curl in the cover (imagine the book nestled between a young childs elbow under a pillow)…
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back…
Pretty neat I thought… then I opened up the cover and there on the front page, bottom right corner… signed, Theodor Suess Geisel…
Even neater right? While I have not confirmed the authenticity of this autograph… It’s still pretty rad.
Now the book has been put away for safe keeping… Maybe one of these days I’ll get it checked out…
:)
posted by Tara Lynn on 11-1-2008 at 6:13 pm
My son’s daycare teacher a few years back was a Canada native who said that she grew up down the street from Dr. Seuss and that even though he wrote children’s books, he wasn’t too fond of children himself.
posted by kim walker on 12-5-2008 at 5:57 pm
Dr. Seuss never lived in Canada (he was born in Massachusetts, went to school in New Hampshire & England, lived on the American east coast, and then moved to San Diego where he lived until his passing), so your son’s daycare teacher was either fibbing or mistaken.
posted by Jennifer on 1-25-2009 at 1:42 am
The book “The Art of Dr. Seuss” has a lot of his unpublished drawings. My favourite is “A Plethora of Cats”- just a canvas covered with cats. His wife said he had added cats to it for years, and never considered it to be “Finished”.
posted by Christopher on 11-16-2009 at 10:51 pm