LA -- New Orleans -- National World War II Museum (Dr. Seuss Goes to War):
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WW2SEU_070127_04.JPG: Dr. Seuss and World War II:
Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) is the all-time best-selling author in American history. "Horton Hatches The Egg" (1942), "The Cat In The Hat" (1957), "Green Eggs and Ham" (1962), "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (1957): these, and 50 other books for young readers, have all become staples of American culture. In fact, they have become so much a part of the air we breathe that we tend to take their author for granted. But their author was a person with very strong opinions living in exciting times, and he expressed those opinions in his life and work.
Perhaps the most exciting times were the years of World War II (1939-1945). Geisel, who had grown up in Springfield, Massachusetts, and drawn cartoons for the Dartmouth College humor magazine, was making good money drawing clever ads for Standard Oil's Flit brand of insecticide. But when war clouds bean to rumble across the Atlantic in Europe and across the Pacific in Asia, Geisel decided to put his talents to more pressing matters.
From early 1941 to early 1943, Geisel drew editorial cartoons -- 400 in all -- for the leftist New York newspaper PM (1940-1948). PM, one of the eight daily newspapers in New York City, backed intervention in the war in Europe and Roosevelt's New Deal programs at home, which aimed to support "the small man" and lift the United States out of the Great Depression. According to publisher Ralph Ingersoll, PM was "against people who push other people around... whether they flourish in this country or abroad." Geisel's editorial cartoons of the period strongly reflect this sentiment.
In 1943, Geisel left PM to join Frank Capra's Signal Corps unit in the U.S. Army. The unit produced the famed "Why We Fight" series of propaganda films, among others. What follows is a sample of Geisel's wartime cartoons, originally published in PM newspaper. The images have been reproduced with permission from the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California at San Diego.
WW2SEU_070127_15.JPG: Geisel and the War in Europe:
More than a year before the United States entered World War II, Geisel was actively encouraging his country to join the war effort against Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Europe. As a left-leaning editorial cartoonist, Geisel watched with horror as the Fascist government of Italy and the Nazi government of Germany built up their military power, intimidated their neighbors, and brutally oppressed minorities and political opponents in their own countries.
While recognizing the dangers that these countries and their leaders posed to the world, Geisel more often than not portrayed Hitler and Mussolini in comical ways -- as hapless buffoons, egomaniacs, and lowly animals. With these caricatured portrayals, Geisel was attempting to diminish their stature and deflate their intimidating personalities.
But Geisel did not shy away from showing the brutality of these regimes. In one cartoon, Geisel draws Hitler, as hangman, happily singing in a grove of trees from which ten Jews hang dead. In another, he depicts Hitler walking atop a long road of dead bodies on his way to the vital oil fields in the Soviet Union.
One can only imagine had he not stopped submitting his cartoons for PM in 1943, the kind of cartoons Geisel would have drawn depicting the Nazis' concentration camps and other horrors of the Holocaust.
WW2SEU_070127_27.JPG: Geisel and the Japanese:
In contrast to Geisel's obvious depictions of Hitler and Mussolini his Japanese characters do not generally represent the Japanese Emperor Hirohito or any other prominent Japanese leader. Geisel caricatures his Japanese characters with piggish noses, coke-bottle glasses, and grotesquely-slanted eyes -- as was commonly done throughout the United States.
In his book, "Dr. Seuss Goes To War," Richard Minear writes of Geisel, "Perhaps it is no surprise that American cartoonists during the Pacific War painted Japan in overtly racist ways. However, it is a surprise that a person who denounces anti-black racism and anti-Semitism to eloquently can be oblivious of his own racist treatment of Japanese and Japanese Americans."
Today there is still much debate over the internment of more than 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in the United States during WWII. During the war, none of Geisel's cartoons took issue with that internment policy.
WW2SEU_070127_28.JPG: Geisel and the Home Front:
While Theodor Seuss Geisel enjoyed heaping scorn [on] leaders of foreign countries, he spent more time ridiculing the people of the United States who either were not supporting the war or who showed traits of racism, laziness, and inefficiency. He also held in contempt armchair generals, complainers, fear-mongers, and war profiteers.
Geisel knew his cartoons couldn't have any real effect on the outcomes of the battlefield, but perhaps they could influence readers on the Home Front to support the war. Collecting scrap metal, following wartime rationing restrictions, and putting 100% of their energies into their war-related work would speed victory. Geisel's mix of humor and guilt sent powerful messages to those who viewed these works.
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Wikipedia Description: National World War II Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National World War II Museum, formerly known as the National D-Day Museum, is a museum located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, at the corner of Andrew Higgins and Magazine Street. It focuses on the United States contribution to victory in World War II, and the Battle of Normandy in particular. It has been designated by the U.S. Congress as "America's National World War II Museum".
Museum Description:
The museum opened its doors to the public on June 6, 2000, the 56th anniversary of D-Day. The museum has a large lobby where aircraft and other items are suspended from the ceiling. Visitors pay admission fees at the desk in the center of the lobby and then visitors' tickets are separated from the ticket stub by veterans of D-Day. Admission prices during the summer of 2005 were marked at $14, with discounts offered to children, students, military members and their families, veterans, and senior citizens. The building is several stories high; elevators are available but the stairs are more accessible and are quicker. Visitors begin their self-guided tour of the museum on the top floor and work their way down toward the ground floor. The museum goes in chronological order; that is, the top floor assesses the political, social, and economic conditions that led up to World War II and D-Day. For example, the museum compares the relative military strengths of major nations entering the war. Later visitors see a model of the beaches of Normandy with the relative positions of the number of aircraft and amphibious vehicles. However, the museum does not solely discuss the invasion; visitors may also view an electronic map of the Pacific Ocean that lights up to illustrate the Allied strategy of island hopping, culminating with nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
Visitors to the museum are encouraged to allocate roughly 2 1/2 to 3 hours to tour the museum. The museum also contains two auditoriums where educational videos are played as well as a gift shop.
Relation to New Orleans:
Some may wonder why the National World War II Museum is located in New Orleans, a city known for other tourism sites, but which is not usually associated with twentieth-century military history. The main reason the museum is located in New Orleans is because the city was where the "Higgins Boats" vital to D-Day operations were designed, built, and tested. The museum gives extensive coverage of the "LCVP" or "Higgins Boat" landing craft used in the invasion of Normandy and elsewhere. These landing craft were designed by Andrew Higgins of Louisiana and produced in New Orleans by Higgins Industries and its licensees. Furthermore, New Orleans was the home city of historian Stephen Ambrose, who spearheaded the effort to build such a museum.
The Museum closed for three months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, re-opening on December 3 that year. A museum banner promoted this re-opening by proclaiming "We Have Returned," a phrase the banner juxtaposed with the classic World War II photograph of Gen. Douglas MacArthur striding through the surf on his return to the Philippines.
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