Rudolph Was Born in a Department Store

The booklet opened with two lines that borrowed a familiar rhythm: "'Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the hills / The reindeer were playing... enjoying the spills."

It was not a famous poet's line. It was written by an advertising copywriter at Montgomery Ward in Chicago, in 1939, for a booklet the company planned to give away free to children who came into its stores at Christmas.

The booklet was called "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." The song, the cartoons, and the television special all came later.

A job at the store

For years, Montgomery Ward had bought coloring books to hand out to children during the holidays. In 1939, according to the Smithsonian and to May's own later account, the company decided it would be cheaper to make its own.

The assignment went to Robert L. May. He was a Dartmouth graduate, class of 1926, who wrote advertising copy for the store.

May did not think of himself as a success. "It seemed I'd always been a loser," he wrote in a 1975 article for Guideposts, quoted by Dartmouth's library. He had been the smallest boy in his class, he said, and was never picked for teams.

Writing it at home

May wrote the story for his young daughter, Barbara. He wrote it in rhyme, in the pattern of "A Visit from St. Nicholas."

He was writing at a hard time. Dartmouth's account says his wife was dying while he worked on it.

May considered other names, including Rollo and Reginald, before he settled on Rudolph. Later accounts say some people at Ward worried about the red nose itself, which might make readers think of a man who drank too much. May later recalled taking Barbara and the store's artist, Denver Gillen, to the Lincoln Park Zoo so Gillen could sketch the deer.

The original story

The Rudolph in that first booklet is not one of Santa's team. He is an outsider, and the other young reindeer laugh at his nose. On a foggy Christmas Eve, Santa is having trouble finding his way, and he discovers Rudolph at home. That glowing nose is just what he needs. Santa asks Rudolph to lead the way.

It was a 32-page booklet with color illustrations by Gillen. Both men's names are on the cover.

2.4 million copies

The Smithsonian and the Chicago History Museum put the first year's giveaway at about 2.4 million copies. A Dartmouth alumni magazine article in January 1940 reported 2.5 million copies ordered through Ward's stores.

During World War II, paper restrictions stopped the giveaway. When Ward brought the booklet back in 1946, it printed about 3.6 million more. A February 1947 alumni magazine story put the total at 5,841,016 copies.

Stores ran short as shoppers came in for their free copies, Dartmouth reports. It also quotes a note a Ward executive sent May: "I for one predict a wide acclaim for the four-legged W.C. Fields."

May had written it on the job. As a Ward employee, he did not own the booklet or its copyright.

The store gave Rudolph back

Then came the turn in May's story. In January 1947, Montgomery Ward released the copyright to Robert May. The company's chairman, Sewell Avery, approved it. According to Dartmouth, May had large hospital bills from his late wife's illness, and a Ward vice president lobbied to give the story back to the man who wrote it. NPR, reporting on the same papers, notes that the company's full reasons are not entirely clear.

Now May could publish the story himself and license the character. A promotional cartoon directed by Max Fleischer came out in 1948.

The next year, May's brother-in-law turned the story into a song. Johnny Marks, whose sister Margaret had married May, was a working songwriter who had written "Address Unknown" for the Ink Spots in 1939. He offered "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to a couple of singers before Gene Autry recorded it in 1949. The Library of Congress says Autry's wife talked him into it.

"I thought it would be a mild hit," Marks later told a radio interviewer. Autry's record is now in the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. Marks went on to write "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree."

On December 6, 1964, NBC aired the stop-motion special, featuring the voice of Burl Ives. It added characters and songs that were never in May's booklet.

What came after

May went back to work at Montgomery Ward in 1958. That same year he gave his original manuscript to Dartmouth. He wrote a few more children's books, but none reached Rudolph's level of fame. Dartmouth notes that he was once quoted as saying he had spent his life "working for a reindeer." He died in 1976.