Dr. Seuss: Political Cartoons

Little-known editorial cartoons by Dr. Seuss re-emerged recently, as critics of President Donald Trump’s order on immigration drew parallels between the author’s warnings seventy years ago and America’s current political climate.

One cartoon depicts a woman reading a story about “Adolf the Wolf” to two children. The woman’s shirt reads “America First,” the slogan championed by isolationists ahead of World War II and echoed today by Trump.

Historian Richard H. Minear collected the cartoons of Dr. Seuss, the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel, for his book Dr. Seuss Goes to War. Geisel was chief editorial cartoonist for PM, a New York periodical, from 1941 to 1943, creating more than 400 cartoons that focused on racism and far-right extremism during World War Two.

Here’s a sample of the cartoons: