Remembering Dr. Seuss

Most of us grew up reading the iconic children’s books by Dr. Seuss – his most famous work being The Cat in the Hat. It’s safe to say most people remember this book from their childhood. With Dr. Seuss’s birthday coming up on March 2, we thought it would be nice to recognize the impact he has had on our culture!

Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Seuss Geisel in Springfield, MA on March 2, 1904. As the story goes, he began using the pen name Seuss after he was caught drinking gin (which was illegal at the time) in his dorm and was prohibited from working on the college humor magazine that he was editor-in-chief for. So he began contributing to it under the name Seuss. The name stuck after he began working at another humor magazine in New York City years later.

After that, Dr. Seuss had a successful career in advertising and writing for magazines before beginning to write children’s books. His first children’s book was And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The book was apparently first rejected by 20-43 publishers before finally being published by Vanguard Press. And this began his career as an author.

Years later after he and his wife had moved to La Jolla, Dr. Seuss hit his stride in publishing the most famous books of his career such as Horton Hears a Who! (1955), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), and Green Eggs and Ham (1960).

Although Dr. Seuss passed away in 1991, his books still live on, many outselling newly published children’s books of today!