Theodor Seuss Geisel is widely considered the most popular children’s book author of all time. Dr. Suess, as he was commonly known, was often asked “Where do your ideas come from?” It was a question he particularly disliked because he considered it “unanswerable”. Yet, who can look at a Dr. Seuss character or read a Dr. Seuss verse without wondering how he ever came up with such an unlikely creation?
The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum, located in downtown Springfield Massachusetts, sheds some light on the situation. Theodor (Ted) Geisel was born and raised in this town and, according to the dedication plaque, “drew much of his early inspiration from his hometown”.
The Museum describes itself as “an immersive, hands-on/minds-on celebration of Theodor Geisel … and a celebration of literacy.” It includes interactive exhibits, a recreation of Dr. Seuss’s art studio and “a maker-space called The Cat’s Corner. All activities have building literacy skills as their foundation and fun as their outcome!” It is indeed a fun place to visit!
Lively, informative displays share some of the influences of Geisel’s early days. They explain, for instance, the role Geisel’s German grandparents played in his upbringing. His maternal grandparents owned and operated Geo J. Seuss Domestic and Fancy Bakery.
A child-size replica of the Seuss Bakery can be found at the Museum.
Geisel’s mother, who worked at the Bakery, “would sing her children to sleep with the rhythmic chant that she used to sell pies at the bakery: “Apple, mince, lemon… peach, apricot, pineapple… blueberry, coconut, custard and SQUASH!” explains the exhibit plague. “Ted fondly remembered his mother’s playful spirit and credited her with helping to develop his interest in rhythm, rhyme, and words.”
Geisel’s paternal grandfather owned the Springfield Brewing Company which was one of the largest breweries in New England. Geisel’s father joined the family brewery business until it closed because of Prohibition. He was later appointed the Superintendent of Parks with responsibility for Springfield’s public park system.
As explained in the book Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography, “The jewel of the park system was five-hundred-acre Forest Park, flanked by enormous Victorian homes painted in combinations of egg-yolk yellow, fire-truck red and pea-soup green. Here Springfield families fished, picnicked and swam in summer, and went sledding and ice-skating in winter. Its maze of dead-end trails delighted Ted, as did the bicycle paths. … His father’s pride within Forest Park was the fledgling, Springfield Zoo, and at the Geisel dinner table there were tales of incorrigible bear, scraggly monkeys and … bearded Barbary sheep.” It’s safe to assume the Springfield Zoo and his father’s job responsibilities inspired Geisel to write If I Ran the Zoo.
“On Sundays and holidays his father took him on behind-the-scene walks through the zoo, and Ted began to bring along a pencil and sketch pad. Marnie [his sister] teased him, for his animals emerged with features that were mismatched and curiously exaggerated.” Author P.M. Boekhoff elaborates in her book Inventors and Creators: Dr. Seuss, “Ted did not have to look far for creative ideas. His house was near the Springfield Zoo, and when he was in his room, he could hear the chattering, cawing, and bellowing of the animals. Surrounded with books and doodled pictures, he made up marvelous stories about what he thought the animals were saying and doing. … Ted looked carefully at everything he saw, sketching parts of different animals stuck together into one amazing creature that might have the trunk of an elephant, the long ears of a donkey, the bushy mane of a lion, and the wings of a bird.”
Geisel published his first book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, under the pen name of Dr. Seuss, in 1937 at the age of 33. Flipping through its pages, it’s not hard to imagine how his early and extensive exposure to zoo animals influenced his illustrations. His keen observation skills are evident. The book includes stylized drawings of a zebra, reindeer, giraffe, rabbits and this charming blue elephant.
The book also provides insight into his creative process as, Marco, the story’s hero dreams up one fantastical story after another. He riffs off his own ideas building one on top of the other—providing a rare glimpse into his creative genius. The story starts with “just a broken-down wagon that’s drawn by a horse” but, in search of a more interesting tale, Marco laments “that’s nothing to tell of, that won’t do”. So, he replaces the horse with a zebra. Then the wagon is replaced by a chariot. The zebra is replaced by a reindeer. Then the chariot is replaced by a sleigh.
Eventually, Geisel starts to add details without removing anything. This fascinating process continues until he’s conjured up a grand parade complete with airplanes dumping confetti.
The blue elephant from And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street resurfaces in Dr. Seuss’s later work. It plays a pivotal role in my favorite story from the Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel biography.
“On the day after New Year’s in 1940, Ted was back at his drawing board overlooking Park Avenue, doodling in pencil on tracing paper in search of an idea. Among unrelated sketches on his desk was one of a gentle-face elephant much like the blue pachyderm that had paraded down Mulberry Street … When Ted took a break for coffee and one of his frequent brisk strolls, he left the window open. Back in his swivel chair he saw that one transparent sketch had blown atop another so the elephant appeared to be sitting in a tree. That started it.”
Once again, there is a glimpse of Geisel’s creative process: his keen observations skills and his zany ability to jump from one thought to another.
“ ‘What is an elephant doing in a tree?” he asked himself. ‘Hmmm … Obviously hatching an egg. But how did the egg get there? Hmmm … a bird must have left it. Where did the bird go?’
This moment launched Horton Hatches the Egg and provided Ted’s most convenient answer to persistent questions about how a Dr. Seuss book was born. ‘I’ve left a window open by my desk ever since,’ he said, ‘but it never happened again.”
The charming, big-eyed elephant was eventually dubbed Horton and starred in the 1940 Dr Seuss book Horton Hatches the Egg.
Horton is a prominent figure at the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum. He appears as a mural on the wall…
… as a life-size sculpture, …
… as a stuffed toy in the recreation of Dr. Seuss’s art studio, …
… and as a larger-than-life sculpture in the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden located outside the Museum.
The Memorial, created by sculptor Lark Grey Diamond-Cates who also happens to be Geisel’s stepdaughter, includes a number of Geisel’s most famous characters. Sally from The Cat in the Hat makes an appearance.
The Grinch from How the Grinch Stole Christmas peeks around the side of a giant book.
Sitting in the middle of this joyful sculpture is Ted Geisel/ Dr. Seuss with his beloved Cat in the Hat.
Geisel’s life-size image sits casually at his desk.
The Cat in the Hat is, of course, Geisel’s most famous character. In a recent 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time list compiled by TIME, The Cat in the Hat was ranked 26th—60+ years after the book was originally published!
Interestingly, Geisel wrote The Cat in the Hat in response to a challenge from William Spaulding, a publisher friend, who asked him to “Write me a story that first-graders can’t put down!” and limit the vocabulary to only 225 words. The challenge came at a time when the issue of literacy among school children was making the news.
“In a memorable outburst in Life, the novelist John Hersey [in an article titled Why Do Students Bog Down on First R? A Local Committee Sheds Light on a National Problem: Reading] … had attacked the typical school primer as an ‘antiseptic little sugar-book showing how Tom and Betty have fun at home and school… pallid primers [with] abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls … uniform, bland, idealized and terribly literal.” He was, perhaps, referring to illustrations such as this one from The Grinn Basic Readers Fun with Tom and Betty.
“Why should they not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate—drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, ‘Dr. Seuss,’ Walt Disney?” quote authors Morgan and Morgan.
As the story goes, Geisel “agreed to take Spaulding’s word list home and ‘play with it’. … Ted tossed Spaulding’s word list in a tray on his desk and promptly forgot about it. … But one afternoon he began pondering two of his favorite words from childhood and outline a story about a Queen Zebra before discovering that neither ‘queen’ nor ‘zebra’ was on the list. … ‘I read [the list] forty times and got more and more discouraged. … I was desperate, so I decided to read it once more. The first two words that rhymed would be the title of my book and I’d go from there. I found ‘cat’ and then I found ‘hat’. That’s genius, you see! …
… It took me a year of getting mad as blazes and throwing [the manuscript] across the room,’ he said. For much of that year he fought under this handicap to achieve a rollicking rhythm. … As Ted struggled with the verse, he began doodling sketches of the Cat. … Because Ted thought in scenes, he believed that The Cat in the Hat was born in the scarred brass cage of an ancient elevator at … [a] publishing house in Boston. The elevator rose and descended with shudders and whines, cajoled by a small, stooped woman wearing “a leather half-glove and a secret smile’. Ted rode with her one day … and never forgot her, nor the noisy contraption that was her domain. … He wanted a wily character but not a mean one, a suave troublemaker, a ringleader of uncontrolled enthusiasm who is surprised when he messes up. … this confident cat could stride on two legs, juggle and ski, and it wore white gloves and a red bow tie with three impossible loops. Finally the words began to click into place. … The Cat was taking charge.” This is the Cat’s first appearance as he enters Sally’s house—the ultimate “suave troublemaker”!
It’s not uncommon for artists to challenge their creativity by forcing themselves to work within specified limits. But Geisel’s experience takes it to a whole new level. At the time, “The New York Herald Tribune book reviewer confessed: ‘We were afraid that the limitations Dr. Seuss put upon himself might have shackled his marvelous inventiveness. Quite the contrary. Restricting his vocabulary … and shortening his verse story has given a certain riotous unity … that is pleasing.”
Numerous renderings and replicas of The Cat in the Hat are found throughout the Museum. Shown below the Cat sits ready for photos with his fans.
Before wrapping up this blog post, I’d like to share the Museum’s perspective on historical context and recently-reported concerns on racism in Dr. Seuss’s books. As posted in the Museum “Historical Context Dr Seuss was a man of his times. He was also a man who evolved with the times.
Ted Geisel, known best by his pen name Dr. Seuss, grew up in the early 1900s … Geisel’s first book for children, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was written in 1937 and includes images that were common in illustrations as short-hand for ethnicity but appear jarring by today’s standards. By contrast, the much-beloved story of the Star Bellied Sneetches was written in 1961 as the Civil Rights Movement was asserting the equality of all people. Geisel, who experienced discrimination as a German American during World War I, wrote The Sneetches and other Stories as a parable about human dignity. By using characters that were not human, but bird-beings, he transcended the boundaries and pitfalls of using people as characters and allowed all readers to relate to the characters as they could. They could be the Sneetch with the star or without the star.
Does the fact that Dr. Seuss changed over time make it OK that his early imagery in children’s books is not comfortable for readers? At the Springfield Museum we believe it is important to view his work in historical context and to talk about it, not ignore it or erase it-because we believe the fact that Dr. Seuss-that Ted Geisel-evolved over time is vitally important. …
The Springfield Museum hopes we will all engage in just this conversation as we explore the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum. We hope all who visit will strive to see Dr. Seuss in historical context and celebrate the fact that a person can change and grow over time. We believe Dr. Seuss’s evolution in thinking is an example from which we all can learn. After all, in the words of Dr. Seuss, ‘It’s not how you start that counts. It’s what you are at the finish.’”
It’s astonishing to think those words, and the many other words and illustrations Dr. Seuss gave to the world, were written in a simple art studio like this recreation at the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum.
More Info
The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum and the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden are located in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. The Seuss in Springfield website provides all the details of this entertaining and informative attraction.
The SeussVille website by Random House Children’s Books is a great source of information about Dr Seuss books as is the Internet Archive where most of his books can be found online.
The book Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography (accessible via Internet Archive) was written by Judith and Neil Morgan. As the book cover reports, they “knew Ted Geisel in the latter half of his life, and here they merge their firsthand insights with scholarly research drawing material from hundreds of letters and interviews, as well as from their subjects notes for an unpublished autobiography.”
Author P.M. Boekhoff provides a high-level overview in her book Inventors and Creators: Dr. Seuss (accessible via Internet Archive).
The 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time list compiled by TIME can be found here.
You can learn more about the novelist John Hersey, author of the article Why Do Students Bog Down on First R? A Local Committee Sheds Light on a National Problem: Reading on The Famous People website.
To learn more about the 2019 Study by Ishizuka and Stephens which “sought to evaluate the claims that his children’s books are anti-racist, and was shaped by the research question: How and to what extent are non-White characters depicted in Dr. Seuss’ children’s books?”, see the article here.
Today’s Takeaways
Here are a few ideas I’ve taken away from Ted Geisel’s creative processes:
1. Hone your observation skills by drawing (or painting, sculpting, carving, photographing, etc) what you see.
2. Try to riff off your own ideas—building each new idea on the previous one.
3. Try to challenge your creativity by forcing yourself to work within specified limits.
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