What famous Christmas icon was created by Montgomery Ward employee Robert L. May in 1939 for one of their catalogs?
Montgomery Ward 1930s, Montgomery Ward had become the country's largest retailer and Sewell Avery became the company's chief executive officer. In 1939, as part of a Christmas promotional campaign, staff copywriter Robert L. May created the character and illustrated poem of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer." The store distributed six-million copies of the storybook in 1946 and actor and singer Gene Autry popularized the song nationally. In 1946, the Grolier Club, a society of bibliophiles in New York City, exhibited the Wards catalog alongside "Webster's Dictionary" as one of 100 American books chosen for their influence on life and culture of the people.
Robert L. May the 1930s, May moved to Chicago and took a job as a low-paid in-house advertising copywriter for Montgomery Ward. In early 1939, May’s boss at Montgomery Ward asked him to write a “cheery” Christmas book for shoppers and suggested that an animal be the star of the book. Montgomery Ward had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money and be a nice good-will gesture. May’s wife, Evelyn, had contracted cancer in 1937 and was quite ill as he started on the book in early