Born on Nov. 26, 1922, in Minneapolis, Charles Monroe Schulz was the one child of German immigrant Carl Schulz and Dena Halverson Schulz. Other than two years spent in Needles, California, Charles grew up within the Twin Cities. Having read the Sunday funnies every week together with his father from an early age, Charles became enchanted by the art of cartooning.

In 1937, the young aspiring cartoonist published a sketch of the Schulz family dog, Spike, in Robert Ripley’s popular “Imagine It or Not!” newspaper feature. In 1940, at the tip of his senior yr at St. Paul’s Central High School, Schulz enrolled in a correspondence course on the Federal School of Applied Cartooning (later renamed the Art Instruction Schools) in Minneapolis. While working odd jobs, he drew sketches and submitted them for publication.

Schulz gave up drawing when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in the autumn of 1942. He was trained to operate a machine gun at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, where he rose to the rank of staff sergeant before being deployed to Europe in February 1945. World War II ended months later, and Schulz received the Combat Infantryman Badge for fighting in energetic combat against the Nazis before being discharged on January 6, 1946.

Upon returning to St. Paul in 1946, Schulz was hired to do lettering for Timeless Topix, a Catholic comic magazine. From 1947 to the early Fifties, he was an instructor on the Art Instruction Schools. In early 1947, Schulz finally had his debut of a weekly panel, titled “Li’l Folks,” within the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Published under the byline of “Sparky” (the artist’s nickname as a toddler) the cartoon introduced early versions of the characters of Charlie Brown, a long-suffering everyman type, and his pet dog, Snoopy. The primary fifteen strips of “Li’l Folks” ran within the Saturday Evening Post between 1948 and 1950.

In 1950, “Li’l Folks” was bought by United Feature Syndicate and retitled “Peanuts.” The primary “Peanuts” strip debuted on October 2, 1950, in seven newspapers nationwide, including the Minneapolis Tribune. It featured a bunch of 3-to-5-year-old characters, inspired by Schulz’s own childhood within the Twin Cities. As cultural historian M. Thomas Inge puts it, the major character, Charlie Brown, comes out of a narrative tradition that celebrates inadequate heroes, akin to those in James Thurber’s cartoons; Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp character; and Buster Keaton’s screen persona. The character of Snoopy, a beagle hound based on Schulz’s childhood family pet, is commonly portrayed as harboring frustrated dreams of grandeur, and wiser than the youngsters. Other characters include Sally, Charlie Brown’s little sister; his surly and contrary friend Lucy; her younger brother, Linus; and his friend Schroeder.

Collections of “Peanuts” were published in book form starting in 1952. The primary television special using “Peanuts” characters, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” appeared in 1965, with many television specials following. As well as, the musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” has been produced quite a few times since its premiere in 1967. The recognition of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the opposite characters resulted within the international marketing of products featuring “Peanuts” characters as early as 1950.

Schulz retired from drawing in January 2000, shortly before his death. Since then, “Peanuts” has returned to syndication, starting with strips originally drawn in 1974. Amongst his accomplishments are 4 full-length movies, forty books, and thirty TV specials. As of 2020, the “Peanuts” comic strip has appeared in greater than 30,000 newspapers in forty languages in seventy-five countries, reaching 350 million readers each day.

Throughout his profession, Schulz won many accolades, including a variety of Peabody and Emmy Awards. He received Honorary LHDs from Anderson College in Indiana and St. Mary’s College in California, in addition to a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously. In late September of 2015, on the sixty fifth anniversary of “Peanuts’” October 1950 debut, Schulz was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

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