Red Nose Redemption

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer did not emerge from the primordial snows of myth or some misty Scandinavian oral tradition. He came from a department store. Specifically: Montgomery Ward, Chicago, 1939. Which is to say, Rudolph is less of a folkloric tradition than a Depression-era marketing gambit.

That year, Montgomery Ward decided to stop outsourcing its Christmas coloring books and instead create its own proprietary giveaway. Enter Robert L. May, a copywriter tasked with producing a holiday story that could be distributed to the children of Monkey Wards’ customers. According to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, May modeled the story loosely on ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, writing in rhyming verse and centering it on a misfit reindeer mocked for his physical difference until that difference became his differentiator in a competitive job market.

It’s tempting to retroactively read Rudolph as a parable of inclusion, tolerance, and the quiet dignity of the outsi…