Becoming Dr. Seuss

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Becoming Dr. Seuss Page 49

by Brian Jay Jones


  10. Judith and Neil Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995), 57.

  11. Ibid., 45–46.

  12. E. J. Kahn, “Profiles: Children’s Friend,” The New Yorker, December 17, 1960.

  13. Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 45.

  14. C. Robert Jennings, “Dr. Seuss: ‘What Am I Doing Here?’” Saturday Evening Post, October 23, 1965.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 45.

  17. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  18. Ibid.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Dan Carlinsky, “The Wily Ruse of Doctor Seuss: Or, How Ted Geisel Has Done Real Well,” Magazine of the Boston Herald American, March 4, 1979.

  22. Ted Geisel to Whit Campbell, July 30, 1926, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  23. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  24. TSG to Whitney Campbell, April 20, 1926, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Ibid.

  29. TSG to Whitney Campbell, July 30, 1926.

  30. TSG to Whitney Campbell, April 20, 1926.

  31. TSG to Whitney Campbell, July 30, 1926.

  32. Warren, “Dr. Seuss, Former Jacko Editor, Tells How Boredom May Lead to Success.”

  33. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  34. Carolyn See, “Dr. Seuss and the Naked Ladies: Blowing the Lid Off the Private Life of America’s Most Beloved Author,” Esquire, June 1974.

  35. Helen Palmer to Christine Burrows, August 4, 1926. Quoted in Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 56.

  36. TSG to Whitney Campbell, July 30, 1926.

  37. Ibid.

  38. TSG to Whitney Campbell, August 11, 1926, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  39. Ibid.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 51.

  42. Jonathan Freedman, “Nearing 80, Dr. Seuss Still Thrills Young, Old,” San Diego Tribune, February 24, 1984.

  43. Ibid.

  44. “Non-Autobiography,” quoted in Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 52.

  45. TSG to Whitney Campbell, October 2, 1926, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Ibid.

  48. Ibid.

  49. TSG to Whitney Campbell, January 7, 1927, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  50. George Kane, “And, Dear Dr. Seuss, the Whole World’s in Love with Yeuss,” Rocky Mountain News, February 15, 1976.

  51. Carolyn See, “Dr. Seuss and the Naked Ladies: Blowing the Lid Off the Private Life of America’s Most Beloved Author,” Esquire, June 1974.

  52. Judith Martin, “Dr. Seuss: Good Times with Rhymes,” Washington Post, November 15, 1971.

  53. Jennings, “Dr. Seuss: ‘What Am I Doing Here?’”

  54. Sally Hammond, “Dr. Seuss: The Man Who Stole Boredom,” unidentified clipping, c. 1969, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  Chapter 4. The Flit

  1. TSG to Alexander K. Laing, May 1927, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  2. TSG to Whitney Campbell, April 13, 1927, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Edward Connery Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss: A Conversation with Theodor S. Geisel,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, April 1976.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Ibid.

  8. The second Seuss to appear in The Saturday Evening Post would be the 1964 prose piece titled, “If at First You Don’t Succeed—Quit!”

  9. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  10. Ibid.

  11. See “Norman Anthony, Editor of Ballyhoo, Dead at 74,” New York Times, January 22, 1968.

  12. George Kane, “And, Dear Dr. Seuss, the Whole World’s in Love with Yeuss,” Rocky Mountain News, February 15, 1976.

  13. Judith and Neil Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995), 63.

  14. TSG to Whitney Campbell, December 1927, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  18. “The Waiting Room at Dang-Dang,” Judge, September 15, 1928.

  19. Dr. Seuss, compiled by Mary Stoflett, Dr. Seuss from Then to Now: A Catalogue of the Retrospective Exhibition (New York: Random House, 1987), 21.

  20. Jonathan Freedman, “Nearing 80, Dr. Seuss Still Thrills Young, Old,” San Diego Tribune, February 24, 1984.

  21. See Judge, December 3, 1927.

  22. TSG, “Non-Autobiography,” quoted in Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 61.

  23. Sally Hammond, “Dr. Seuss: The Man Who Stole Boredom,” unidentified clipping, c. 1969, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  24. See Ellen NicKenzie Lawson, Smugglers, Bootleggers, and Scofflaws: Prohibition and New York City (New York: State University of New York, 2013), 83.

  25. TSG to Whitney Campbell, March/April (?) 1928, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Bob Warren, “Dr. Seuss, Former Jacko Editor, Tells How Boredom May Lead to Success,” The Dartmouth, May 10, 1934.

  29. Dan Carlinsky, “The Wily Ruse of Doctor Seuss: Or, How Ted Geisel Has Done Real Well,” Magazine of the Boston Herald American, March 4, 1979.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Warren, “Dr. Seuss, Former Jacko Editor, Tells How Boredom May Lead to Success.”

  32. TSG to Campbell, March/April (?) 1928.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  36. Typical of Ted, there is also a version of this story that does not mention Mrs. Cleaves. In that version, Ted simply sent his cartoon off to Flit to see if there might be any interest in having him take on an ad campaign. See Warren, “Dr. Seuss, Former Jacko Editor, Tells How Boredom May Lead to Success.”

  37. TSG to Campbell, March/April (?) 1928.

  38. See “The exterminator-man forgets himself at the flea-circus,” Judge, March 31, 1928.

  39. See Life, May 31, 1928, p. 30.

  40. Charles D. Cohen, The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss: A Visual Biography of Theodor Seuss Geisel (New York: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2004), 110.

  41. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  42. Freedman, “Nearing 80, Dr. Seuss Still Thrills Young, Old.”

  43. “Ough! Ough! Or Why I Believe in Simplified Spelling,” Judge, April 13, 1929.

  44. The term nigger in the woodpile was slang of the era for “a concealed motive or unknown factor affecting a situation in an adverse way.” See definition for nigger in the woodpile in Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 5th ed., Vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press), 2002.

  45. “Non-Autobiography,” quoted by Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 70.

  46. Jonathan Cott, “The Good Dr. Seuss,” in Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: The Wisdom of Children’s Literature (New York: Random House, 1983).

  47. See “Forgotten Events of History,” Life, July 1930.

  48. Carolyn Robbins, “Passing of Dr. Seuss’s Niece, ‘Peggy the Hoofer,’ Puts Spotlight on Springfield Childhood,” Springfield Republican, March 7, 2015.

  49. Mike Salzhauer, “A Carnival Cavort with Dr. Seuss,” Dartmouth Review, February 2, 1981.

  50. Warren, “Dr.
Seuss, Former Jacko Editor, Tells How Boredom May Lead to Success.”

  51. “Gay Menagerie of Queer Animals Fills the Apartment of Dr. Seuss,” Springfield Union-News, November 28, 1937.

  52. The first book to feature Ted’s art, the collection of Flit cartoons, had only a limited release.

  53. Alexander Abingdon, compiler, Boners: Being a Collection of Schoolboy Wisdom (New York: Viking Press, 1931), 15.

  54. “Schoolboy Wisdom,” New York Times, March 1, 1931.

  55. See Jennifer Schuessler, “Inside the List,” New York Times Sunday Book Review, December 12, 2008.

  56. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  57. E. J. Kahn, “Profiles: Children’s Friend,” The New Yorker, December 17, 1960.

  58. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  59. Ibid.

  60. Ibid.

  61. TSG, “Non-Autobiography,” quoted in Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 72.

  62. Carolyn Robbins, “Memoir Reflects Geisel Family Life in Springfield Before Dr. Seuss Books Written,” Springfield Republican, September 6, 2015.

  63. TSG, “Non-Autobiography,” quoted in Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 68.

  64. Walter Winchell, “On Broadway,” Scranton Republican, February 12, 1931.

  65. Judith Martin, “Dr. Seuss: Good Times with Rhymes,” Washington Post, November 15, 1971.

  66. TSG to Harold Rugg, 1932, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  67. “Czar of the Insect World,” Vanity Fair, December 1931.

  68. Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 74.

  69. Ibid.

  70. Cott, “The Good Dr. Seuss.”

  71. Warren, “Dr. Seuss, Former Jacko Editor, Tells How Boredom May Lead to Success.”

  72. TSG to Andy Gump Fepp, quoted in Philip Nel, Dr. Seuss: American Icon (New York: Continuum, 2003), 70.

  73. Dr. Seuss, compiled by Mary Stofflet, Dr. Seuss from Then to Now, 35.

  74. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  75. Ibid.

  76. See Cohen, The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 124.

  77. Ibid.

  78. A. S. Brown, “When Dr. Seuss Did His Stuff for Exxon,” The Lamp, Spring 1987.

  79. E. J. Kahn, “Profiles: Children’s Friend,” The New Yorker, December 17, 1960.

  80. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  81. Carlinsky, “The Wily Ruse of Doctor Seuss.”

  82. Ibid.

  83. Swedish American Line brochure, circa April 1936.

  84. C. Robert Jennings, “Dr. Seuss: ‘What Am I Doing Here?’” Saturday Evening Post, October 23, 1965.

  85. Dr. Seuss, compiled by Mary Stofflet, Dr. Seuss from Then to Now, 29.

  86. Ibid.

  Chapter 5. Brat Books

  1. Dr. Seuss, compiled by Mary Stofflet, Dr. Seuss from Then to Now: A Catalogue of the Retrospective Exhibition (New York: Random House, 1987), 29.

  2. Edward Connery Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss: A Conversation with Theodor S. Geisel,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, April 1976.

  3. “Making Our Daughters Less Irritating,” Judge, November 24, 1928.

  4. Judith Martin, “Dr. Seuss: Good Times with Rhymes,” Washington Post, November 15, 1971.

  5. Bliss Street is in fact on the west side of Springfield, across the Connecticut River from Mulberry Street.

  6. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  7. Judith and Neil Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995), 81.

  8. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  9. Mike Salzhauer, “A Carnival Cavort with Dr. Seuss,” Dartmouth Review, February 2, 1981.

  10. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  11. Ibid.

  12. See the dedication page of pretty much any printing of And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

  13. Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 83.

  14. Evelyn Shrifte to TSG, August 31, 1937, Vanguard Press Papers, Columbia University.

  15. See Publishers Weekly, August 28, 1937.

  16. See “Crazy Doings on Mulberry Street Told in Book That Is Hard to Beat,” Springfield Union-News, October 3, 1937.

  17. “Books,” The New Yorker, November 6, 1937.

  18. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  19. Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, December 1937.

  20. Jonathan Cott, “The Good Dr. Seuss,” in Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: The Wisdom of Children’s Literature (New York: Random House, 1983).

  21. Lathem, “The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  22. See Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 85.

  23. See Ted’s 1960 draft of “Brat Books.” Emphasis in original, Special Collections Library, UCSD.

  24. Dr. Seuss, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, 14.

  25. Don Freeman, “Dr. Seuss at 72—Going Like 60,” Saturday Evening Post, March 1, 1977.

  26. See Robert Cahn, “The Wonderful World of Dr. Seuss,” Saturday Evening Post, July 6, 1957.

  27. “Nut Stuff,” Sales Management, January 1, 1939.

  28. Notes for Alumni Magazine, March 1938, “Brief Biographies,” Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  29. Cynthia Gorney, “Dr. Seuss at 75: Grinch, Cat in the Hat, Wocket and Generations of Kids in His Pocket,” Washington Post, May 21, 1979.

  30. TSG, unpublished interview with Edward Connery Lathem, 1975. Quoted in Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 87.

  31. Gorney, “Dr. Seuss at 75.”

  32. Ibid.

  33. Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, January 1939.

  34. See the dedication page of any edition of The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

  35. Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 91. Emphasis in original.

  36. Cahn, “The Wonderful World of Dr. Seuss.”

  37. Bennett Cerf, At Random: The Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf (New York: Random House, 1977), 18.

  38. TSG, unpublished interview with Edward Connery Lathem, 1975. Quoted in Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 98.

  39. TSG to E. J. Kahn Jr., E. J. Kahn papers, New York Public Library. Cited in Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, 93.

  40. Bennett Cerf to TSG, December 19, 1938, Random House records, Columbia University Libraries.

  41. E. J. Kahn, “Profiles: Children’s Friend,” The New Yorker, December 17, 1960.

  42. Gorney, “Dr. Seuss at 75.”

  43. “Dr. Seuss,” Wilson Library Bulletin, November 1939.

  44. Bennett Cerf to TSG, February 1939. Bennett Cerf papers, Columbia University Libraries.

  45. Diane Clark, “He Is Waking Children to a World of Words,” San Diego Union, December 19, 1976.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Carolyn See, “Dr. Seuss and the Naked Ladies: Blowing the Lid Off the Private Life of America’s Most Beloved Author,” Esquire, June 1974.

  48. Kahn, “Profiles: Children’s Friend.”

  49. Cerf, At Random, 123.

  50. Dr. Seuss, The King’s Stilts (New York: Random House, 1939), 17.

  51. “Gay Menagerie of Queer Animals Fills the Apartment of Dr. Seuss,” Springfield Union-News, November 28, 1937.

  52. TSG to Lew Miller, 1939. My thanks to Michael Frith for sharing his copy of this correspondence.

  53. “The King’s Stilts . . .” New York Herald Tribune Books, November 12, 1939.

  54. Ellen Lewis Buell, “The New Books for Younger Readers,” New York Times, October 15, 1939.

  55. Robert Sullivan, “Oh, the Places He Went!” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Winter 1992.

  56. Lathem, “The
Beginnings of Dr. Seuss.”

  57. TSG and Ralph Warren, United States Patent 2,15-,853, filed May 19, 1938. See Cohen, The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 368 n. 45.

  58. Cahn, “The Wonderful World of Dr. Seuss.”

  59. Ibid.

  60. See Cohen, The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 2.

  61. Digby Diehl, “Q&A Dr. Seuss,” Los Angeles Times West, September 17, 1972.

  62. “Matilda, the Elephant with a Mother Complex: A Dr. Seuss Fable,” Judge, April 1938.

  63. TSG to Louise Bonino, October 1939. Random House records, Columbia University Libraries.

  64. Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches the Egg (New York: Random House, 1940), 18.

  65. Cahn, “The Wonderful World of Dr. Seuss.”

  66. Sullivan, “Oh, the Places He Went!”

  67. Cerf, At Random, 85.

  68. Bennett Cerf to Miss Frances Pindyk, April 11, 1940, Columbia University Special Collections.

  69. Alexander Laing, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, December 1940.

  70. TSG, undated draft of letter to “Mr. Americus Vesputius Fepp,” Rauner Library Special Collections, Dartmouth College. It’s unlikely Ted was literally working on Horton Hatches the Egg as the Nazis occupied Paris. Paris fell on June 14, 1940, and Horton was published only a few days later.

  71. New York Journal-American, February 17, 1939.

  Chapter 6. Cockeyed Crusader

  1. See “Our Story,” Naragansett Beer website, www.narragansettbeer.com/our-story.

  2. “Rome Talk Is Near; Spanish Negotiator Not Expected to Agree to War with Britain,” New York Times, September 30, 1940.

  3. “Gayda Accuses FDR of Offensive Against Axis,” The Bee (Danville, Virginia), November 1, 1940.

  4. “Gayda Warns U.S. Japan Won’t Allow Convoys to Ireland,” Portsmouth Herald, December 28, 1940.

  5. See “Virginio Gayda Says . . .” PM, January 30, 1941.

  6. Ibid.

  7. TSG, undated draft of letter to “Mr. Americus Vesputius Fepp,” Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  8. A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh (New York: Putnam, 1998), 402.

  9. Jonathan Freedman, “Nearing 80, Dr. Seuss Still Thrills Young, Old,” San Diego Tribune, February 24, 1984.

  10. TSG, undated draft of letter to “Mr. Americus Vesputius Fepp.”

  11. Franklin D. Roosevelt State of the Union Address, January 6, 1941. This was also the famous “Four Freedoms” speech. See Roosevelt’s reading copy of the speech, archived at https://fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/readingcopy.pdf/.

 

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