October 7, 2004

Seuss Exhibition At UCSD's Geisel Library
Focuses On The Author's Influence On American Culture

By Pat JaCoby

The Cat in the Hat for President, a new exhibition illustrating the influence that artist/author Theodor Seuss Geisel has had on American culture, is on view through Jan. 2, 2005, in Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego. It is free and open to the public.

The exhibition is the third and final show mounted by the UCSD Libraries during the 2004 Seussentennial, a year-long celebration of Geisel – Dr. Seuss – and his work during the 100th anniversary year of his birth.

The exhibition’s 10 display cases feature a variety of items which demonstrate how the creative talents of Dr. Seuss have become interwoven into multi-facets of American life. Included are newspaper headlines depicting the Grinch as a generic villain, a photograph of a Rose Bowl Parade float with Seuss characters, academic articles about Seuss books, political parodies and cartoons a la Seuss, green eggs and ham recipes, a cornflakes box decorated with The Cat in the Hat, and mementoes of the last San Diego County Fair, whose theme was the Seussentennial, among others.

Dr. Seuss became a household name with the publication of The Cat in the Hat in 1957. The author and the Cat have come to symbolize the pursuit of literacy and education and do so on a fun-filled path of whimsy and the delightfully ridiculous.

With their quirky illustrations and joyful poetry, the Dr. Seuss Beginner Books set the standard for fun reading primers and have become a cornerstone in teaching literacy. But it was not only fun that inspired Geisel. He did not shy away from controversial themes, such as tyranny (Yertle the Turtle), racism (The Sneetches and Other Stories), environmental destruction (The Lorax), and nuclear proliferation (The Butter Battle Book).

“Geisel adeptly explains complex concepts in deceptively simple verse and infuses his children’s books with an uncommon political dimension that challenges readers to think critically about the world,” says exhibition curator Alexandra Rosen Gagné, reference/instruction librarian in the Mandeville Special Collections Library.

“Because the Dr. Seuss books have been so well received and so universally read for the last half century, the Cat, along with other luminaries of the Dr. Seuss canon, and the Seussian style itself, have become part of the collective American consciousness.”

Remarkably, Geisel’s works have been studied by scholars in such diverse fields as medicine, advanced math, psychology, management theory, philosophy, political science, linguistics, poetry, sociology, and library science, as well as education and children’s literature.

Geisel lived and worked in La Jolla for more than four decades. He died in 1991. His personal collection of his creative works and memorabilia was given to UCSD by his widow, Audrey Geisel, in 1994. It includes original art work, rough sketches and drafts, scrapbooks, photographs, fan mail, books, and other materials.

America’s admiration for Geisel and his works continues to be expressed in many ways. Annual Dr. Seuss celebrations take place nationwide on Geisel’s birthday, March 2. Museums have shown original art works and have created interactive exhibitions based on Geisel’s books. The U.S. Postal Service has featured both the Cat and Geisel on two separate stamps.

The first exhibition in the Seussian trilogy this year was The Dr. Seuss You Never Knew, Jan. 5 to March 27. It featured early work from Geisel’s days at Dartmouth and Oxford, his advertising, illustration, and magazine work of the 1920s and 1930s and his World War II magazine cartoons. The second exhibition was Dr. Seuss Between the Covers, May 24 to Sept. 4, which focused on the children’s books for which Geisel has become world-renowned.

Geisel wrote 44 children’s books which have been translated into more than 20 languages and sold more than 500 million copies. Most of his original work is included in the Dr. Seuss Collection in UCSD’s Mandeville Special Collections Library. It is the most extensive collection of the author’s work, including approximately 9,000 items.

For further information on The Cat in the Hat for President or the Dr. Seuss Collection, call the Mandeville Special Collections Library at (858) 534-2533.

Media Contact: Pat JaCoby (858) 534-7404