Neighborhood News: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s Chicago Origins
“You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen..
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen…
But do you recall…
The most famous reindeer of all?
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer…
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows…”
‘Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,‘ by Johnny Marks
As children throughout our Chicago communities fall asleep on Christmas Eve this Saturday night, some may wonder if Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, with his glowing red nose, will be guiding Santa’s sleigh through a starless night sky.
Chicago Origins
What most may not know about Rudolph and friends is the story’s Chicago origins.
The credit for the ‘birth’ of Rudolph goes to Robert L. May, a Montgomery Wardadvertising copywriter. Ward’s, as it was known, was a Chicago-based department store, similar to its chief rival- Sears, Roebuck & Company, which still sells as an online retailer today. The holiday season, then as now, was where competition was fiercest and department stores fought for attention, shoppers, and their bottom line.
Rudolph was born in the waning days of the Depression, as World War II began raging across Europe.
According to Wikipedia sources, May was a frustrated advertising copywriter at Montgomery Wards, whose wife was dying of cancer. Early in 1939, May’s boss asked him to write a “cheery children’s book” for Christmas shoppers, suggesting “it should be an animal story, with a character like Ferdinand the Bull.” The store would give the book to shoppers as a promotional gimmick. As the source tells it:
“May decided to make a reindeer the central character of the book because it was a Christmas animal. It had to be a sort of “ugly duckling” who had a lot of heart to make it with Santa. He drew on memories of his own painfully shy childhood when creating his Rudolph story. He and his then four-year-old daughter Barbara, together with Montgomery Ward artist Denver Gillen, visited Lincoln Park Zoo one Saturday to get a better idea of what Rudolph might look like. “
A 2018 Time Magazine article said the idea of a glowing nose apt for navigating came from May looking out his office window in the middle of one of Chicago’s winter days, seeing the fog from Lake Michigan and thinking of Santa trying to do his work on such a night.
According to the Time Magazine article, Montgomery Ward printed the story as a soft-covered booklet and distributed 2.4 million copies for free.
Then, a small publishing house Maxton Publishing Co. offered to print it in hardcover. It became a best-seller, but Rudolph’s story didn’t really become world-famous until May’s brother-in-law Johnny Markswrote a musical version that Gene Autry sang. The tune topped the charts in 1949.
Later, with the advent of television, ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ became a much-loved annual television special for the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation in 1964, which was remade for a new generation in the 1970’s and 80’s.
What resonates with Rudolph?
The story of Rudolph carries a much bigger message for children and parents alike today. It is the story of a ‘differently abled’ sweet-natured mammal, whose unique traits, once mocked by peers, are essential to accomplishing an important task. As Ronald Lankford notedin his cultural history of American Christmas songs, “The story of Rudolph, then, is the fantasy story made to order for American children: each child has the need to express and receive approval for his or her individuality and/or special qualities. Rudolph’s story embodies the American Dream for the child, written large because of the cultural significance of Christmas.”
Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago
