Sunday, February 28, 2010

Say it ain't so! The racist side of Dr. Seuss

I was perusing the blogosphere and came across a blog entitled Dharma Pancakes. It was from a post on this blog that I learned some disappointing information regarding childrens author Dr. Seuss. According to Dharma Pancakes, during WWII, Seuss created cartooning racist propaganda for the War Department.



From 1941-1943, Dr. Seuss was the chief editorial cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM (1940-1948), and for that journal he drew over 400 editorial cartoons.



The horrifying images above and many others can be found at orpheus.ucsd.edu.
A collection of these cartoons are captured in Dr. Seuss Goes to War.

This is definitely a far cry from Dr. Seuss's, The Sneetches which happens to be my favorite Dr. Seuss book.



It is in this tale that the Star bellied Sneetches and the plain belly Sneetches learn to accept each other for their differences.

Theodor Seuss Geisel would have been 106 years old on March 2nd. Seuss was born in 1904 in Springfield Massachusetts.

I visited Seussville.com and his biography is quite tame as I suspected. His political cartooning is mentioned but the content of those political cartoons are not mentioned.

Dr. Seuss was a creative man and has brought me much joy over the years. It is tonight that he has brought me disappointment.

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