Biography of Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss Biography: Early Life

Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Seuss Geisel on the 2nd of March, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts to Theodor P. Geisel and Henrietta Seuss. His father worked as a superintendent for the Forest Parks in Springfield.

While still a freshman in Dartmouth college, Dr. Seuss joined the ‘Dartmouth Jack-o-Lantern’ and eventually rose to the post of editor-in-chief. However, he was caught by the school administration while throwing a drinking party for his friends. This was during the time of Prohibition and so the school wanted him to resign from his extracurricular activities. So he began to sign his work with ‘Dr. Seuss’ and continued to work with the Jack-o-Lantern.

His first work appeared six months after graduating from college in a humor magazine called ‘The Judge’.

He then entered Lincoln College in Oxford to study for a PhD in literature. There he met and married Helen Palmer Geisel in 1927. He never got his PhD. He then went to the United States of America.

Dr. Seuss Biography: Career

In United States, Dr. Seuss began to submit his work (funny articles and illustrations and cartoons) to several newspapers and magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Vanity Fair and so on. He acquired much fame for his advertisement of ‘Flist’ (an insecticide) and the slogan "Quick, Henry, the Flit" became an instant hit.

During the time of the Great Depression, he supported his family by drawing advertisements for several well known organizations such as General Electric, Standard Oil etc.

In 1937, while returning from Europe in an ocean voyage, the ship’s rhythm inspired his first poem which also became his first book, titled ‘And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street’.

When World War II started, he began to draw political cartoons for the New York newspaper called ‘PM’.

In 1942 he began to draw posters for the American Treasury Department and the War Production Board. He joined the army in 1943 and worked as the commander of the Animation Department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces. There he wrote films like ‘Your Job In Germany’, ‘Design For Death’ (which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1947) and a series of adult army training films called ‘Private Snafu’. He also wrote a non-military film called ‘Gerald McBoing-Boing’ which won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Animated) in 1930.

After the war, Dr. Seuss and his wife moved to La Jolla, California. He began writing children’s books. Favorites among those were ‘If I Ran The Zoo’ in 1950, ‘Scrambled Eggs Super!’ in 1953, ‘On Beyond Zebra’ in 1955, ‘If I Ran The Circus’ in 1956 and ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ in 1956.

In 1954 an report appeared in ‘Life’ magazine which documented the illiteracy in schools and concluded that children were not learning to read because the books that they had to read in school were boring. Based on this, Dr. Seuss’ publisher made a list of 400 important words and asked Dr. Seuss to cut the list down to 250 words and write a book using only those words.

Using 220 of those words, Dr. Seuss worked for 6 months and wrote ‘The Cat in The Hat’ (1950). Following this trend and as a result of a bet between Bennet Cerf and Dr. Seuss was the book ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ which used only 50 words. Both these books remain favorites all over the world as ‘beginner books’ for children who are learning to read. These books were very difficult to write for him as he struggled with the use of the limited vocabulary.

Dr. Seuss went on to write several books in his lifetime. Some of his well known books are: ‘Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories’ (1958), ‘Happy Birthday To You!’ (1959), ‘One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish’ (1960), ‘Dr. Seuss’ Sleep Book’ (1962), ‘Dr. Seuss’ ABC’ (1963), ‘I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew’ (1965), ‘The Lorax’ (1971), ‘There’s a Wocket in my Pocket’ (1974), ‘Oh, the Thinks you can Think’ (1975), ‘Hunches in Bunches’ (1982), ‘I am NOT going to Get Up Today!’ (1987) and many more.

Dr. Seuss Biography: Poems and Art

Dr. Seuss was well known for his use of poetic meters while writing his books. His favorite or characteristic poetic meters were: Anapestic Tetrameter, Trochaic Tetrameter, and a mixture of Trochaic and Iambic Tetrameters.

Dr. Seuss would also illustrate his books himself. Before the war, he used shaded pencil drawings or watercolors. After the war he began to use pen and ink. Initially the illustrations were just black and white, but his later books used colors.

Life & Death

In 1967, during a very difficult illness, Dr. Seuss’ wife Helen, committed suicide. Dr. Seuss then married Audrey Stone Dimond.

On the 24th of September, 1991, following many years of illness, Dr. Seuss passed away.

Although he spent his life writing several children’s books, Dr. Seuss himself never had any children.