Oh, the Places You’ll Go! You best believe that we went to many places using Google My Maps to gather some rather special information about Dr. Seuss’s life, work, and achievements, and we’ve written this blog to bring the places to YOU. Yes, YOU, our dear reader, and we’re back as a group just like we promised! In this blog, we’re going to share our results, thoughts, and experiences using Google My Maps as part of our research study for our project on Dr.Seuss’s children’s books and their impact on all ages alike. We recommend you grab a snack because this ride will be a long one 🙂
Before we show you our work, let’s give you a short introduction on what digital tool we’ve been recently working with: Google My Maps. Google My Maps is a system updated by Google for Google Maps. Through this system, you as a user can add specific places, markers, and directions that you can share with friends, coworkers, and colleagues, or even keep for yourself.
So, how does this system work?
First, you need to have a Gmail account, and through it, you can create My Map. On the map page you can first name your map according to what you would like to do with it, then once you take a look at the overall page, there are three main important tools that you’ll definitely use (along with the rest of the tools of course that are super easy to use!): the search box, the ‘Add Marker’ tool, and the ‘Add Layer’ tool. Once you add a layer, you can add different locations that you might want to group together for reference, and you can choose to show or hide a layer if your map becomes too crowded with pins. You can click on the title to change the name of the layer according to your project and you can include a short description about it. By clicking on your desired location and adding a marker, you can insert a description, several photos and even videos that you would like to show. Also, you can customize the dropped pin or marker; for example, if the address is a home, you can select a Home icon. There are many more icons of different shapes that can be used and can also be numbered in the case of time sequencing of locations (such as ordering the places you’ve visited throughout your life). There are many interesting features that you can use such as drawing lines to connect locations and adding Google directions! You can even measure distances and areas if needed.
Moving on, for our final Digital Humanities project, we chose to focus on Dr. Seuss’s children’s stories, and how they impacted both children and adults morally and culturally. We chose four books to focus on, two of which are considered as Beginner Books (The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham) and another two considered as Message Books (Oh the Places You’ll Go and The Lorax). For our mapping exercise, all books did not contain real locations that we could pinpoint through Topotext or Google My Maps, so we only focused on mapping some other interesting information about Dr. Seuss and his work, such as:
- A time sequence of Dr. Seuss’s achievements and studies throughout his life and career: This could help us understand how his life experiences developed his achievements and led him to create the stories and cartoons that are so loved by the world.
- The main locations where Dr. Seuss lived throughout his life: These locations may allow us to understand the regions that were first exposed to his work at the time of their publications and how he became famous.
- Location of his book publications: This may also give us an idea of the areas that were first exposed to Dr. Seuss’s line of work, and to what extent his work was accepted.
- Location of his television series broadcasts: Yet again, this may allow us to identify the level of popularity of his books and cartoons and the level of demand for his work being used in modern methods of production.
- The different languages his books have been translated to: This could show the impact his creations have had on the rest of the world, and possibly when these translations have occurred.
- And finally, the locations of Dr. Seuss’s monuments and posthumous honors in memory of his highly recognized creations.
It was quite a bit worrying at the beginning to find some research questions that could possibly yield results from Google My Maps; however, once we learned how to use the tool (which frankly only took very few minutes as it’s extremely simple to use!), and once we did some of our own digging on Dr. Seuss (mainly from Wikipedia), more ideas started flowing like the locations of book publications, posthumous honors, and tv series broadcasts.
We created 6 layers on our map, one for each of our 6 research topics, and created icons of different colors and shapes to distinguish each of the layers when they are all visible (you can choose to turn off a layer to make it easier to focus on specific layers). We even added some lengthy descriptions for our viewers to easily understand the context and some interesting visuals.
So, what results did we achieve?
Our results were very promising! Our map turned out to be very informative and much easier to collect information from compared to reading about Dr. Seuss (technically, we had to do both, but we really appreciate the importance of such a tool because of how much it facilitates the gathered information to form a conclusion). Let’s analyze our results in the order of our 6 research questions mentioned earlier…
- Time sequence of Dr. Seuss’s achievements and studies throughout his life and career:
It was interesting to notice Dr. Seuss’s many travels and changes throughout his life just by looking at the above screenshot of our map. We turned off all other layers to focus on each layer at a time. The four main regions of his life spiraled around Massachusetts, New York, California, and Oxford, all of which are cities that could easily help bring one into the spotlight, especially at Dr. Seuss’s time. The locations of all his work, encounters, and publications of cartoons and some of his early works all resided in those areas. If he were living in smaller rural towns instead of industrialized towns, how do you think that might have played a role in how fast he could have gained fame and recognition? These cities are KEY to his success. Not only are they busy towns filled with powerful educated people and wealthy families, but they are also the heart of the media. Dr. Seuss’s cartoons were featured in so many magazines in his early career, and his success helped him climb to higher places.
Additionally, we noticed how the locations and people impacted some of his work and life decisions. Firstly, it was his later-to-become wife, Helen Palmer, whom he met at his postgraduate university in Oxford, who convinced him not to continue his Ph.D. in English to pursue his career in drawing. This point in his life could possibly have been the most significant, which led to the ripple effect of dropping out, to creating many cartoons that became featured in several magazines, to creating advertisements, to writing books, all the way to finally reaching worldly recognition. His many travels with his wife around the world also inspired him into writing some of his children’s books. The rhythm of the ship’s engine on one cruise in Europe led him to write his very first book: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. If his poetical instincts were born at home, his artistic ideas were waiting for him just outside the house. Mulberry Street was a street in Springfield, which was the area that referred to an actual street in his hometown, and at the time it was a manufacturing hub for cars, board games, and firearms. The smokestacks, fountains, and distinct architectural features of the town, reimagined into things both strange and fantastical, could have helped to form a visual theme of books like The Lorax. Clearly, locations do have a significant role in the production and creation of Dr. Seuss’s work throughout his life.
2. The main locations where Dr. Seuss lived throughout his life:
We mapped out the main stable locations throughout his life and were left with generally the same pattern as was found in our above research question. These regions were what helped his creative confidence and career climb up to higher places, eventually reaching the entire world. Besides his short-lived time in the United Kingdom, his career was shaped and developed after he had dropped out of graduate school. However, his educational experiences did also have an impact, as his knowledge of his field allowed him to rather ‘think out of the box’. His national recognition and his many publications led his alma mater, Dartmouth College, to award him with a Doctorate degree, officially making him Dr. Seuss. All his work and experiences around the region led to this end result. How differently things would have been had he not listened to Helen Palmer’s advice…or if he had not met her in Oxford at all!
3. Location of his book publications:
His national recognition is clearly explained by his widespread publications through magazines and publishing companies along the paths of where he’s lived and moved around. Being featured in many readings shows how widely accepted and in demand his work was. This could probably be explained through his fun cartoons, his easy use and play on words, his use of methods and techniques that attracted children, and many more. His work was quick to be noticed, and his chance to share his work was always taken advantage of. He wrote many books and spent a lot of his time working on them, and his fame seems to have only encouraged him to work harder over the years. It is quite interesting to notice that many and most of his early works were focused on adults and not children. However, their sense of creativity led them to be fun, easy on the reader, and informative. His education combined with his passion led him to combine two very powerful tools to be used for all ages alike.
4. Location of his television series broadcasts:
I think it’s safe to say that we all watched at least one of Dr.Seuss’ movies in our life. This got us thinking, if the books were made into movies then maybe we could map the studios that produced them? And this is exactly what we did in one of the layers, we searched for all the movies that have ever been produced and pinpointed the locations of the studios on the map. Some of the studios are actually now nonexistent, and others have either changed their names or have been bought by different companies but at the time they were: MGM Animations, DFE Films, Marvel Productions, Hanna-Barbera Productions, and Blue Sky Studios. Although most of the books were turned into animation movies, Dr. Seuss was actually very reluctant throughout most of his career to allow this because he didn’t want his characters to be marketed in contexts outside of his own books. However, as he aged, he gradually relaxed his policy and permitted the creation of several animated cartoons, which is a relief because I really can’t imagine not watching any of those animated movies!
5. The different languages his books have been translated to:
Dr. Seuss wrote in what can be called the language of children. Hundreds of millions of copies have found their way into homes and hearts around the world. His stories were downright imaginative and told in a humorous, rhythmic style accompanied by silly drawings. But behind all the perceived silliness are important lessons and messages that kids and even adults can benefit from: Dr. Seuss wrote about loving the environment, about rejecting racism, consumerism, materialism, taking responsibility for one’s actions, and more. Dr. Seuss made a game of wordplay, inspiring and influencing a large amount of the population of the United States through his clever use of phonology and knowledge of what makes words tick – and his impact wasn’t only limited to the States, but worldwide. His books were published in at least 20 different languages! Of course, as expected, the nuances of the original text, the metaphors, made-up words, and the spirit of the story did not necessarily translate well in all these languages. Still, it was quite a feat for someone to have his works made available to children who spoke other languages. In the above picture, you can see the different mapped countries where his books were translated into their language. In his honor, March 2 is known as both “Dr.Seuss Day” and, in many places, “World Book Day.” The aim of the observance is to celebrate literature and urge children all around the world to read. There’s no doubt how impactful Dr. Seuss’s books were, which is one of the main reasons they were translated into many languages.
6. Locations of Dr. Seuss’s monuments and posthumous honors in memory of his highly recognized creations:
Those of us who find solace in books and even anyone who has ever read a book are most likely familiar with the author Dr. Seuss. His work greatly contributed to the learning experience of many children all over the world, and his books continue to maintain their high value and societal prestige years after his death and are still influencing the world up to this moment. In memory and honor of his literary and artwork, several places were named after him while others were built to keep his legacy alive. These places have attracted fans from all over the world. In the above picture, we mapped out the locations of these sites of attractions and found that they were mainly located around the places where he lived, and that was no surprise because the places he saw as a boy and some of the characters that he encountered had such a profound effect on him that they are later manifested in the books he created. From these monuments, the Dr. Seuss Experience is what caught our attention the most. It’s an occurring exhibition based on his books where children are able to experience and interact with the lively characters and environment. For example, visitors entering “The Lorax” room can wander through a forest of truffula trees just like in the book and at the same time, it would be teaching them about environmental stewardship. Another interesting site of attraction is the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden which features sculptures of Dr. Seuss and many of his characters from his stories. It allows you to dive into the imaginative and colorful world that Dr. Seuss wrote about.
On another note, at Dr. Seuss’s alma mater in 2012, Dartmouth Medical School was renamed as ‘Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine’ in their honor. Geisel’s work and life were considered as a timeless example for their future physicians. Another interesting note to mention is that most first year students at the university would participate in the University’s outing club, and one tradition included staying overnight at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge where the students would have green eggs and ham for breakfast which is an inspired recipe by the beloved Dr. Seuss book!
It didn’t stop there; San Diego’s University Library was also renamed as ‘Geisel Library’ for Dr. Seuss’s kind contributions to the library and for improving literacy. These tributes have truly become iconic pieces of art and are the reflection of Dr. Seuss’s history.
“A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we didn’t know were previously connected.” -Reif Larsen
Google My Maps was one of the digital mapping tools that we were introduced to through our digital humanities course (ENGL 256B). It was probably the tool we were most excited to use because it was an addition to the many tools Google offers. Digital mapping is mainly concerned with producing maps that give accurate representations of a particular area with detailing major road arteries and other points of interest. It allowed us to create our own custom map which visualizes the locations of several events from Dr. Seuss’s life and this was crucial for our project due to the fact that it made it easier to navigate Dr. Seuss’s life journey. This allowed us to dive in and explore some theories as to what could have influenced his beautiful and creative writing such as his surroundings and upbringing. With Google MyMaps, we had the option of creating unlimited layers, changing the colors, adding icons and linking the different locations. Overall it was an exciting and fun experience. However, the main disadvantage of this DH tool was the fact that it is limited to novels with real-world locations, meaning that this sort of analysis wasn’t applicable to stories written by Dr. Seuss, but we managed to find other research questions to map, and we’re really satisfied with our results.
Mapping the author’s life achievements gave us an insight into his life and his own personal development, which led him to become one of the most highly praised and recognized children’s writers. By closely reading about the author and his work, and translating these texts into visual information through MyMaps allowed us to appreciate every single detail, as well as somehow touch the world he lived in. The map we created seems almost like a virtual version of his life that we got to feel, see, and imagine through text, pictures, videos, and location. Mapping allowed us to combine the different senses of imagination and allowed us to better grasp and feel the experiences of others. Mapping reshaped our view of his work in ways where we felt like we can understand him and the reasons why he adopted certain styles in his writing and his cartoon drawings, however, this will have to be confirmed through textual analysis and a combination of both close and distant reading. Also, since most of his children’s books have special characters of their own, it’s hard to forget any of them whenever you see one. Dr. Seuss has such a unique style of drawing and cartooning that can be easily recognized as his own, and never fails to catch the attention of both adults and children with his playful and informative works. From this exercise, we can confidently say that we’re even more intrigued in his line of work, his creative confidence, and what makes his work so special to the whole world.
This is the end of our ride around all the places Dr.Seuss went. We hope you enjoyed it and landed safely back in your homes, in front of your laptops and phones. We would love it if you checked out our Google My Maps with the following button:
And if you try making your own map, please do tell us about your experiences in the comment tabs. We’ll be back soon with another blog and until then, stay safe. 🙂
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” -Dr. Seuss
Written by: Dalia Bekdache, Mirriam Hijazi, Raghad Sheronick, and Sara Deeb
Citations:
- “Dr. Seuss.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss.
- “The Wonderful World of Dr. Seuss.” The Language Journal, www.thelanguagejournal.com/2012/06/wonderful-world-of-dr-seuss.html.
- “Dr. Seuss Bibliography.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss_bibliography.
Ad Astra with Dalia Bekdache 