Dr. Seuss, Theodor Seuss Geisel

Theodor Seuss Geisel, known popularly as Dr. Seuss, was born March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated Dartmouth College in 1925, and proceeded on to Oxford University with the intent of acquiring a doctorate in literature. In 1927, he began working for a magazine called Judge, the leading humor magazine in America at the time, submitting both cartoons and humorous articles to them. He also frequently submitted cartoons to magazines such as Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty.

In 1954, Life published an article about illiteracy among school children. According to the article, children had trouble learning to read because their books were boring. This inspired Geisel's publisher to send Geisel a list of 400 child-appropriate words to use to write a book. Nine months later, Geisel, using 220 of the words given to him, published The Cat in the Hat, which went on to instant success. Other works such as Green Eggs and Ham, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Horton Hears a Who, were very successful and promoted literacy among children.