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Minnesota Humanities Commission

Charles M. Schulz

Biographical Notes

Date of birth: November 26, 1922, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Date of death: February 12, 2000, Santa Rosa, California

Charles Monroe Schulz. Cartoonist and author. Charles "Sparky" Schulz graduated from Central High School (St. Paul), 1940. Studied cartooning with Federal Schools (later Art Instruction Schools, Inc.), a Minneapolis correspondence school, in the early 1940s. His studies were disrupted in 1943 when he was drafted into the army and sent to Europe. Served in the Twentieth Armored Division, 1943-45. Hired to do lettering for Timeless Topix, a Catholic comic magazine, in 1946. Instructor at the Art Instruction Schools, circa 1947 to early 1950s. Contributed fifteen cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post from 1948 to 1950. Drew cartoon "Li'l Folks" for St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1947 to 1949. In 1950 created popular comic strip "Peanuts," which was nationally syndicated and eventually appeared in more than two thousand newspapers worldwide. Some of the characters in the cartoon were based on real people Schulz met in Minnesota. Many collections of his "Peanuts" cartoons were published in book form from 1952 on. The first television special using "Peanuts" characters appeared in 1965, and products using "Peanuts" characters were marketed internationally from 1950 on. The musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown has been produced numerous times since 1967.

Reuben Award, National Cartoonists Society, 1955 and 1964; Humorist of the Year Award, Yale University, 1958; School Bell Award, National Education Society, 1960; Emmy and Peabody awards for writing children's television program "A Charlie Brown Christmas," 1965; Emmy award for writing "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" television special, 1974. Honorary L.H.D., Anderson College in Indiana, 1963; Honorary L.H.D., St. Mary's College in California, 1966.

Retired, January, 2000. Following Schulz's retirement and subsequent death in February, 2000, "Peanuts" is being rerun in syndication, starting with strips originally drawn in 1974. Among his accomplishments are four full-length films, forty books, and thirty TV specials. The "Peanuts" comic strip has appeared in more than thirty thousand newspapers in forty languages in seventy five countries, reaching 350 million readers daily.

Selected Works

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Additional Resources

Sources used to prepare this author entry

The following bibliography may include links to Web sites that are no longer operable or have changed location. The sources are shown as they existed in the fall of 1999 when the entries were compiled.
  • Advertising Club of Minneapolis. Format. May 1963, Vol. 8, no. 9, p. 8.
  • Contemporary Authors. Vol. 9-10. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1964.
  • "Eric's Peanuts Page." 25 July 1999. Online. Accessed 27 Aug. 1999. http://www.angelfire.com/ne/chloupek/peanuts.html
  • Mendelson, Lee. Charlie Brown and Charlie Schulz. New York: World Publishing Co., 1970.
  • Minneapolis Star, 24 Apr. 1956, p. 6A.
  • Minneapolis Star, 4 May 1956, p. 1A.
  • New York Times Magazine. Apr. 1967, p. 32.
  • "The Official Peanuts Web Site." Online. Accessed 27 Aug. 1999. http://www.snoopy.com
  • Richards, Carmen. Minnesota Writers. Minneapolis: T. S. Denison, 1961.
  • Richards, Carmen. Minnesota Writes. Minneapolis: Lund Press, 1945.
  • St. Paul Dispatch, 14 Dec. 1972, p. 24.
  • St. Paul Dispatch, 2 Oct. 1976, p. 11.
  • St. Paul Pioneer Press, 17 Apr. 1979, p. 5.
  • St. Paul Pioneer Press, 14 Feb. 2000, p. 1A.
  • Schulz, Charles. Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me, and All the Other Peanuts Characters. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980.
  • Schulz, Charles. Peanuts Jubilee: My Life and Art with Charlie Brown and Others. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975.
  • Who's Who in America: 1980-81. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1980.
  • Who's Who in America: 2000. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, a Reed Reference Publishing Co., 2000.
  • Who's Who in American Art. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1976.
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