Up until 1939 Rudolph didn't actually exist. That kind of blows my mind as I've never known a Christmas without Rudolph so it never occured to me he was an add on to the reindeer crew. 

Rudolph was created by Robert L May for Montgomery Wards department store in Chicago. (I actually mentioned Robert L May briefly day 4 here.) 

Robert L May was a copywriter for the department store so was tasked with writing a book to give out to children over the festive period which the department store did every year. They realised they could save money if they wrote it in house, so Robert suggested creating a story where a reindeer was the main character. The character of Rudolph was based around his own experience of being the odd one and being bullied as a child. Robert chose to have a reindeer as the main character as his daughter Barbara was a big fan of the deer at the Zoo. To check it would be popular with children he read parts to his daughter who was 5 years old at the time, changing bits she didn't like to mould it into the perfect children's poem. At this time his wife was ill with cancer and unfortunately died in July of 1939. Roberts bosses at Ward's department store offered to take the assignment away from him but he wanted to continue ... and thank goodness he did! 

In 1939 shoppers loved the poem and Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer! Unfortunately due to print restrictions due to the war it wasn't reissued again until 1946 when 3.6 million were distributed. 

In 1946 Robert May was approached by a publisher who wanted to do a spoken word version of the poem, but Montgomery Ward owned the rights too it. Luckily for Robert the president of the department store signed over the rights to him allowing him to produce this spoken word version and profit from it. The spoken word version was a huge success. 

In 1947 the Maxton publishing company decided to take a risk and put out an updated version of the poem, many publishers had passed because so many million free copies had been given out they felt no one would want to buy it. They were wrong. The book became a bestseller. 

In 1948 May's brother in law, Johnny Marks wrote a musical adaptation of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Singers such a Bing Crosby actually passed on singing it, eventually leading to the singing cowboy Gene Autry recording it. It was released in 1949 and became a huge success, only White christmas out sold it. 

May did write two sequels to Rudolph the red nosed reindeer but I don't think anything could beat the success of the original. 

In 1964 Rankin/Bass productions produced a stop motion animation TV special of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer thus popularising the character even further. 

Since the creation in 1939 Rudolph has become an iconic part of Christmas and Santa's key reindeer - show me a Christmas film which has Santa in and not Rudolph ... it's pretty difficult! 

What a lovely gift Robert L May created and his daughter was so lucky to have been a part of it. 

Did you know about Rudolph's origins? 

Comment below! 

Rosie x