History Alive Project– Dr. Seuss

My topic is on the artist and author Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss was beneficial not only to the modern world, but also to the Civil Rights movement because some of his work from 1941 to 1943 went against the African-Americans racial identity through art. Although Dr. Seuss is mostly known for his childrens’ books, he also illustrated other cartoons that affects politics and racism.

Originally, my first topic was on the activist Malala Yousafzai, but it quickly changed after I realized that I wasn’t that interested in her. I then decided to research on the artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell since I was interested in art and he had a huge connection to Civil Rights. But this quickly changed when Mr. Elms gave me the topic of Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss is one of the most famous authors for kids worldwide, and it’s very intriguing when I found out there was a different side to him during the time when he drew racist cartoons in World War II. Also, I became even more interested when I learned that the children’s books he wrote had connections to the past such as Adolf Hitler, the Japanese Americans during the American Post-War, and the Cold War.

In order to research, I had to look through the comics that Seuss drew during that time period. I went to a secondary source website (Library of the University of California of San Diego) and found copies of his comic collections. Most of the time, I went on online websites of colleges or museums that have copies of his cartoons such as Dartmouth College and the National World War II museum in New Orleans. There I found primary sources of the drawings he drew himself. Because I thought I needed a variety of different types of sources, I borrowed a book about Dr. Seuss and his work. This book really helped me understand more about his life and what he did as a living before starting to write children’s books.

Because Dr. Seuss was an artist himself, I thought that the best way to convey this project was to do an exhibit. With the cartoons and the drawings he did as a primary source, it made sense to have them on an exhibit. I also decided to select this category because since there were so many images of his cartoons to display, it would be easier to present them through an exhibit presentation.

Although Seuss was mostly famous for the children comics he drew, the ones he drew in the 1940’s goes against races that weren’t White. One of those races was African, and he drew cartoons that was anti-African Americans. He wasn’t exactly a racist, and he was leaning towards being inclusive. He wanted to reduce racial conflicts rather than just responding to the situation.