We all remember Dr. Seuss's books fondly from childhood, but did you know that, before writing and illustrating picture books, he drew political cartoons during World War Two? He made over 400 of them actually, while working as editorial cartoonist for leftist New York City newspaper PM from 1941-1943. Since I"m sort of in between movies to review right now, I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of them.
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| Originally published in the newspaper PM on December 26th 1941. |
First off we have this cartoon telling people to buy U.S. Defense Bonds and Stamps. The term "hock" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "to give (something that you own) to a pawnbroker in exchange for money" and the selling of "defense bonds" by the U.S. government was used to help finance the war effort and keep inflation in check by removing money from circulation. Several of these cartoons deal with war bonds, but that isn't what your'e interested in is it? No, what your'e interested in when you hear "Dr. Seuss made propoganda cartoons during World War Two." is if there's anything that might be considered horribly offensive in there.
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| Originally published in the newspaper PM on December 30th 1941. |
On that subject, we have this cartoon saying that perhaps since the enemy is fighting dirty, it's time to stand up for ourselves. Most of my American reader base will know what the tag saying "PEARL HARBOR" is referring to,* but what about the one that says "MANILA"? So far as I can figure, Manila refers to a city in the Philippines where Japanese troops were indiscriminately killing civilians.
Also, Dr. Seuss was a quite liberal person for his time, being strongly opposed to the Antisemitism and racial discrimination of the Nazis, and while we're on the subject he was also opposed to those things when they happened in the U.S. Anyway, for such a left leaning person, it's slightly odd to see that his representation of Japan, presumably Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan at the time, is a bucktoothed, squinting, and rather short fellow holding a knife as if to stab someone, presumably in the back. Granted, the bombing of Pearl Harbor had happened only three weeks ago, and anti-Japanese sentiment would become common as a result,** but it's still slightly uncomfortable looking at it from the perspective of the 21st' century, especially from Seuss.
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| Originally published in the newspaper PM on June 6th 1942 |
Next we have this cartoon about Hitler's overextending of his armies, at least that's what I think this is about. I can't think of anything else to say about it, so let's move on....
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| Published November 28th 1941. |
...to another cartoon involving an American trade embargo on Japan, which was dependent on import of American scrap to fuel it's rapid industrialization and conquest of Asia.
Now you know that the guy who wrote Cat In The Hat also made political cartoons. Next time, I'll try to get a movie review out, or a random episode of Law and Order. Would any of you like that? Let me know in the comments.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
*For my non U.S. readers, on December 7th 1941 the Japanese pulled a surprise attack on a U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The attack was intended to discourage American intervention in Southeast Asia, we declared war on Japan a day later.
**Seuss himself was notorious for holding these views, he got over them after the war.
Sources included:
The Political Dr. Seuss at http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa291.htm
Dr Seuss Went To War at http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/
All of the images used in today's blog post can be found and used without charge in their digital form for educational purposes, courtesy of the UC San Diego Libraries, at this website here: http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/
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