Most people know Rudolph through the Gene Autry song and the animated version of the story, but before the hit song and cartoon, there was the children’s booklet that inspired them. In 1939, Montgomery Ward assigned a Chicago copywriter, Robert I. May, to create a booklet to be distributed free at its stores. By now, you may have figured out that there was a message behind the story. Writing the story on the eve of World War II. The state of the world no doubt affected him. He would later say that Rudolph was a “story of acceptance,” the moral of which was that “tolerance and perseverance can overcome adversity.”
However, May’s story originally was rejected by officials at Montgomery Ward because they worried it would seem like Rudolph’s red nose was a sign of alcoholism, but, the story went through and was sent to be printed. Guess where? The Kansas Color Press, in Lawrence! They printed over 10 million copies of the original book from 1939 to 1946 before Montgomery Ward determined that the story had run its course, but Rudolph the red nosed reindeer was forever ingrained into Christmas in America.
