The Santa Claus family was increase

The Santa Claus family was increased by one in the years before World War II. Rudolph, the ninth reindeer, with a red and shiny nose, was invented in 1939 by Robert L. May, an advertising writer for the Montgomery Ward Company.

May’s boss wanted to give away a special book to children during the Christmas season. In January 1939 May started to work. Although the boss first rejected the story of Rudolph, May persisted. May completed it in late August, Denver Gillen illustrated it, Montgomery Ward printed it, and 2,500,000 copies were distributed that Christmas.

When Wards reissued the book in 1946, more than 3,500,000 copies were distributed. That same year, Sewell Avery, chairman of Montgomery Ward, gave the copyright to Bob May.

The next year, a children’s book publisher brought out a new edition, and sold over 100,000 in two years.

In 1949, Johnny Marks wrote the song about Rudolph. Gene Autry recorded it; it went to #1 on the Hit Parade and sold 2,000,000 copies. The film version first aired in 1964, and the story and song have been translated into over 25 languages.

In 1989, Wards reissued a Golden Anniversary Edition, a facsimile of the original 1939 edition, published by Applewood Books (see above).

Robert May graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1926 and joined Montgomery Ward in 1936. A humble, soft-spoken man, he was gratified that children had so responded to his little story. May referred to Rudolph as ‘my generous son,’ claiming that the reindeer enabled him to send his six children to college. In 1958 May donated the original manuscript to the Baker Library at Dartmouth College, which now houses the Robert L. May Collection. May left Wards in 1951 to manage Rudolph’s career, but returned to the company in 1958.He retired in 1970 and died in 1976.

Montgomery Ward went out of business in early 2001. Because the poem is still under copyright it is not reproduced here. Reproductions of the 1939 original are available from used-book sellers on the World Wide Web.

Of course, Robert May's depiction of a reindeer was not the first. In 1821, a small, sixteen-page booklet appeared, titled A New Year’s Present for the Little Ones from Five to Twelve, Part III. It was about Christmas, and was the first to picture Santa Claus in a sleigh drawn by a reindeer