4. Dr. Seuss depicted the Soviet army in a positive light in 1942
1942 was the darkest year of the war for the Americans, though their presence on the battlefield was cheering for the British allies in North Africa, and the equipment provided to the Soviets via Lend-Lease had greatly strengthened their armies. In June 1942 the US Navy won its great victory at Midway, and later that summer the Americans went on the offensive at Guadalcanal, triggering a series of naval battles in the Solomons, with heavy and disheartening losses. Dr. Seuss published numerous cartoons depicting the defeats suffered by the Axis, particularly as the Soviet Army began to grind up the Germans at Stalingrad, and he also portrayed the Japanese lamenting the heavy losses they suffered in the Pacific campaigns, but the majority of his work during 1942 was directed at policies and politics.
1942 was the year that rationing began in the United States, and the year that scrap drives began to collect metal and rubber for the war effort. Travel was assigned priorities for rail, air, and sea. The American people were asked to make sacrifices, and Seuss produced cartoons which condemned those who did not support them fully and freely. He continued to attack the isolationists and those who did not support Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union, as well as those at home who hoarded the products which were becoming increasingly hard to find in stores. Dr. Seuss also directed his ire towards the press which opposed Roosevelt’s policies throughout the year of 1942, with one cartoon featuring a tank labeled the McCormick – Patterson Press spraying what he called disunity gas on the American people.