(This story was originally written and recorded for the 2024 Christmas Retrocast – Podcast #231, released on December 15, 2024.)
The following story appeared on page 11 of the November 16, 1939 edition of the San Fernando Valley Times:
Toyland At Montgomery Ward Stores
SAN FERNANDO — Toyland comes to Montgomery Ward stores both here and in Glendale this week with the receipt of the full complement of Christmas toys and gift merchandise. Every child visitor, accompanied by an adult, will be presented with a 32-page copy of Robert L. May’s four-color book riot, “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” one of May’s most hilarious juvenile entertainers. It is not necessary to make a purchase to obtain this gift.
This year’s Montgomery-Ward toys are 100 percent American made and purchases made now have the benefit of the pick of the stock, while payments may be made on the layaway plan. You should see the “bubble cannon,” an exclusive and sensational new amusement for kids from 5 to 50.
That story was the earliest mention of Rudolph in the press. To the right of that article is a large ad for Montgomery Ward’s toy department. Toys being promoted that year for Christmas are the Fully Equipped Hawthorne Comet bicycle, Velocipede tricycle, Pla Pal Wagon, a rubber Porky Pig doll, Tinker Toys, a Wetting Doll, and, of course, that Rudolph book.
“Free! 32-page, 4-color Picture-Story of Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer. The rollicking new Christmas verse that’s sweeping the country! One copy given free to any child accompanied by an adult… in Ward’s Toy Department.”
Yet, the story of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer began as a cost-cutting move on the part of Mongomery Ward. For many years, the company had been giving away coloring books during the holiday season, but the purchase of these had proven to be quite costly. So, they concluded that the easiest way to save money would be to create their own in-house coloring book.
To do this, they turned to one of their employees—advertising copywriter Robert Lewis May.
First, a little background on May:
He was born in Long Island, New York on July 27, 1905, and was raised in a relatively affluent secular Jewish household in New Rochelle, New York. He graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1926, majoring in psychology.
After Dartmouth, May began his career as a copywriter in NYC for R.H. Macy & Co. In 1927, he moved to Omaha, Nebraska, to work as the advertising manager for J.L. Brandeis & Co., where he married his first wife, Evelyn. A year later, the couple relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, where May held a similar position at Rich’s department store. By 1930, they had returned to New York City, and May joined the Butterick Company as an assistant sales manager. However, the Great Depression led to his unemployment in 1932.
In 1933, May found work as an advertising manager and copywriter for Gimbel Brothers in New York City. During this time, Evelyn gave birth to their daughter, Barbara. In 1936, May left Gimbel’s for a job as an in-house advertising copywriter at Montgomery Ward in Chicago, where he would remain for most of the next 24 years.
Upon being assigned the Mongomery Ward coloring book project: May settled upon using a reindeer – an animal already associated with Santa and his sleigh – as his central character. But this would not be just any plain-old reindeer. Instead, this one would be an outcast, a misfit, an ugly duckling. And he needed a good name for his reindeer. At first, he thought about naming the reindeer Rollo or Reginald, but ultimately settled upon Rudolph.
Then, one day, May was looking out of his office window and noticed that a dense fog was blocking his view of Lake Michigan. May was struck with a burst of inspiration: “Suddenly I had it! A nose! A bright red nose that would shine through the fog like a spotlight.”
Meanwhile, May was struggling in his personal life. His wife Evelyn was dying of cancer, and May was struggling to support his family financially. When she passed away on July 28, 1939, May’s boss offered to reassign the project, but May chose to finish it. It would take him about 50 hours, in total.
Initially, the bigwigs at Mongomery Ward were not receptive to the idea of Rudolph having a red nose, since a red nose was associated with alcoholism. A misfit reindeer who came across as being drunk wasn’t exactly the image that the company wanted to portray. So, May asked an illustrator at Montgomery Ward, Denver Gillen, to make some cute drawings to accompany the story. Management liked what they saw and gave the project a green light.
As that article noted, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was printed and distributed by Mongomery Ward during the 1939 holiday season. They gave away 2.4 million copies, but wartime shortages prevented them from printing more. Once WWII ended, printing resumed and another 3.6 million copies were given away during the 1946 holiday season.
RCA Victor noticed the incredible success of the Rudolph story and asked May if they could record a spoken-word version of it. The problem was that while the story was copyrighted in May’s name, the rights to it belonged to his employer Montgomery Ward. Only they could provide permission for RCA to make the recording. In an almost unheard-of bit of corporate generosity, company president Sewell Avery turned over complete ownership of Rudolph to May.
Now that Rudolph was his to do whatever he wanted, May sought to have his poem turned into a children’s book, but publishers balked because Montgomery Ward had given away so many millions of copies.
Luckily, Maxton Publishers, a small publisher in New York, agreed to print the book. They got it out just in time for Christmas of 1947 and sold over 100,000 copies of the hardcover book.
The following year, May enlisted his brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, to write a musical adaptation of Rudolph’s story. After being rejected by Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, and others, the song was suggested to Gene Autry to use a B-side of a single he was recording. He rejected it at first, but his wife egged him on to record it. That single went to #1 for the week ending January 7, 1950, making it the first No. 1 song of the 1950s. And that’s how the classic song came about.
Soon, May found running Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Enterprises to be a full-time job and he left Montgomery Ward in 1951. But Rudolph’s popularity died off at the end of the 1950s and May returned to Montgomery Ward in 1958. He would work there as a copyeditor until his retirement in 1970.
Rudolph would see a resurgence in 1964 when Rankin/Bass Productions released their classic stop-motion animated television film, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. That show, which is a personal favorite of mine, proved to be a smash hit, and is said to be the longest-running television special in American history.
Robert May passed away on August 11, 1976, at 71 years of age. But the story of Rudolph has continued to shine each and every Christmas. The copyright on that original story, which is set to expire in 2034, is today owned by The Rudolph Company, LP.
