The Origins Of The Story Of Rudolph The Red-nose Reindeer By Robert L. May

The origins of The story of Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer!


If you aren't familiar with it either, read below:

As the holiday season of 1938 came to Chicago,
Bob May wasn’t feeling
much comfort or joy.

A 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward,
May was exhausted and nearly broke.

His wife, Evelyn, was bedridden,
on the losing end of a two-year battle with cancer.

This left Bob to look after their
four-year old-daughter, Barbara.

One night, Barbara asked her father,
“Why isn’t my mommy like everybody
else’s mommy?”

As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question,
Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood.

A small, sickly boy, he was
constantly picked on and called names.

But he wanted to give his daughter
hope, and show her that being different
was nothing to be ashamed of.

More than that, he wanted her to know
that he loved her and would always
take care of her.

So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright
red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team.

Barbara loved the story
so much that she made her father tell it
every night before bedtime.

As he did, it grew more elaborate.

Because he couldn’t afford to buy his daughter
a gift for Christmas, Bob decided to turn the story
into a homemade picture book.

In early December, Bob’s wife died.

Though he was heartbroken, he kept
working on the book for his daughter.

A few days before Christmas,
he reluctantly attended a company party at Montgomery Ward.

His co-workers
encouraged him to share the story he’d written.

After he read it, there was a
standing ovation.

Everyone wanted copies of their own.

Montgomery Ward
bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee.

Over the
next six years, at Christmas,
they gave away six million copies of Rudolph
the Red Nosed Reindeer to shoppers.

Every major publishing house in the
country was making offers to obtain the book.

In an incredible display of
good will, the head of the department store
returned all rights to Bob May.

Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire.

Now remarried with a growing family,
May felt blessed by his good fortune.
But there was more to come.

His brother-in-law, a successful songwriter
named Johnny Marks, set the uplifting story to music.

The song was pitched
to artists from Bing Crosby on down.

They all passed.

Finally, Marks
approached Gene Autry.

The cowboy star had scored a holiday hit with
“Here Comes Santa Claus” a few years before.

Like the others, Autry wasn’t
impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer.

Marks begged him to
give it a second listen.

Autry played it for his wife, Ina.

She was so touched
by the line “They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games”
that she insisted her husband record the tune.

Within a few years, it had become
the second best-selling Christmas song
ever, right behind “White Christmas.”

Since then, Rudolph has come to life
in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys,
games, coloring books, greeting
cards and even a Ringling Bros. circus act.

The little red-nosed reindeer
dreamed up by Bob May and immortalized in song by Johnny Marks has
come to symbolize Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees and
presents. As the last line of the song says, “He’ll go down in history.”