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Essay on Dr. Seuss
Life and work
Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 2, 1904. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1925, and entered Lincoln College, Oxford, intending to earn a doctorate in literature. At Oxford, however, he met Helen Palmer, married her in 1927, and returned to the United States. He began submitting humorous articles and illustrations to Judge (a humor magazine), The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty. Geisel's first work signed as "Dr. Seuss" appeared six months into his work for Judge. One notable "Technocracy Number" made fun of Technocracy, Inc. and featured satirical rhymes at the expense of Frederick Soddy. He became nationally famous from his advertisements for Flit, a common insecticide at the time. His slogan, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" became a popular catchphrase; Seuss supported himself and his wife through the Great Depression by drawing advertising for General Electric, NBC, Standard Oil, and many other companies. He also wrote and drew a short lived comic strip called Hejji in 1935.
Even at this early stage, Geisel had started using the pen name "Dr. Seuss". Seuss was his mother's maiden name; as an immigrant from Germany she would have pronounced it more or less as "zoice", but today it is universally pronounced in Americanized form, with an initial s sound and rhyming with "juice". The "Dr." is an acknowledgement of his father's unfulfilled hopes that Seuss would earn a doctorate at Oxford.
In 1936, while Seuss sailed again to Europe, the rhythm of the ship's engines inspired the poem that became his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Seuss wrote three more children's books before the war (see list of works below), two of which are, atypically for him, in prose.
As World War II began, Dr. Seuss turned to political cartoons....
