Dr. Seuss and PM
Early Dr. Seuss
Theodore Seuss Geisel, most famously known by his pen name Dr. Seuss, was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1904. The National World War II Museum sums up his childhood as relatively happy.
In his early career, Dr. Seuss worked in advertising. Then he decided to write children’s books. After nearly thirty publishers rejected him, Geisel published And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street in 1937. As conflicts grew in Europe, Dr. Seuss encouraged the United States to enter the war.
[Dr. Seuss, 2021, Encyclopedia Britannica.]
PM Newspaper
PM was a short lived radical newspaper started in 1940. (Richard Minear) The paper favored democracy, considered fascists as a threat, and supported President Roosevelt. According to André Schiffrin, the paper's founder Ralph Ingersoll famously stated it would be a paper “against people who push other people around.”
The newspaper, which was a minority daily in the New York press, received vast opposition. Therefore, PM had a rough start. Since Seuss’ and PM’s political views were alike, Dr. Seuss drew around 400 political cartoons for PM from 1941 to 1943.
[PM newspaper cover, 1941, Dr. Seuss Goes to War.]