Montgomery Ward

We'd also go to Sears or Montgomery Ward and stock up on corduroy pants and stiff denim jeans that one could prop up in a corner.

Randi Miller: Life Is Full of Fresh Starts Randi Miller 2011

 We'd also go to Sears or Montgomery Ward and stock up on corduroy pants and stiff denim jeans that one could prop up in a corner.

Randi Miller: Life Is Full of Fresh Starts Randi Miller 2011

Near the front of the scrapbook is a large colored poster instructing Montgomery Ward stores about how to order and distribute the book.

Scrapbook Tells How Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Actually Went Down In History 2011

His office, in a former Montgomery Ward warehouse with exposed concrete walls, is one flight up from Groupon's.

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In reality, Montgomery Ward assigned May to write a Christmas book around the same time his wife was ill, Herz said.

Scrapbook Tells How Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Actually Went Down In History 2011

The scrapbook also chronicles the massive marketing campaign Montgomery Ward launched to drum up newspaper coverage of the book giveaway and its efforts to promote it within the company.

Scrapbook Tells How Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Actually Went Down In History 2011

May eventually left Montgomery Ward to essentially manage Rudolph's career, which really took off after May's brother-in-law Johnny Marks wrote the song made famous by Gene Autry in 1949, and the release of a stop-motion animated television special in 1964.

Scrapbook Tells How Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Actually Went Down In History 2011

But lest this become a story about corporate greed, it should be noted that in 1947, Montgomery Ward took the unusual step of turning over the copyright to the book to May, who was struggling financially after the death of his first wife.

Scrapbook Tells How Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Actually Went Down In History 2011

That's how executives at Montgomery Ward originally described Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, who first appeared in a 1939 book written by one of the company's advertising copywriters and given free to children as a way to drive traffic to the stores.

Scrapbook Tells How Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Actually Went Down In History 2011

She acknowledges the myths that have become entwined in Rudolph's history – including the notion that May wrote the story as a Christmas gift for his older daughter, Barbara, when his wife was dying of cancer and that a Montgomery Ward manager "caught wind of the little storybook."

Scrapbook Tells How Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Actually Went Down In History 2011