One of my family’s Thanksgiving traditions is to watch Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. When I think of the parade, larger-than-life-sized balloons of cartoon characters, floats, and performances come to mind. While I enjoy watching the parade on TV, I didn’t think about the history of the parade until this week. Let’s go back to the 1920s and explore the origins of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The first Macy’s store opened in 1858. However, the company didn’t go public until 1922. Its flagship store, located in New York’s Manhattan Herald Square, expanded in 1924 from Broadway to Seventh Avenue along 34th street, which is where the parade takes place. On Thanksgiving morning that same year, Macy’s decided to promote itself with its first Thanksgiving parade. Despite the timing, the parade was targeted for Christmas by encouraging people to shop at Macy’s for the holiday season. The idea of hosting a parade was inspired by Philadelphia’s Gimbel Brothers Department Store, which first held a Thanksgiving parade in 1920 with a similar concept of attracting customers to buy Christmas presents. In addition to efforts to increase holiday sales, Macy’s first Thanksgiving day parade also appealed to children. To match Macy’s nursery rhyme-themed window displays, floats included popular characters such as Little Miss Muffet and Little Red Riding Hood. In addition, Macy’s employees and animals from the Central Park Zoo were a part of the parade. The final float displayed Santa and his reindeer, an idea borrowed from Gimbel Brothers’ parade.
Over time, the general flow of the parade stayed the same, but changes occurred as needed. For instance, zoo animals are no longer a part of the parade, due to recognition that they need to be treated humanely and that they scare some spectators. Instead, balloons of animal characters joined the parade, one of the first being Felix the Cat in 1927 or 1931, depending on the source. Also, the release of balloons originally signaled the parade’s conclusion, but was discontinued after two interferences between balloons and planes.
The only years since the tradition began that Macy’s didn’t have a Thanksgiving parade were from 1942-1944, due to a shortage of helium and rubber during World War II. The parade’s return in 1945 marked the first time it was broadcasted on TV. Since then, the goal of each parade is to be more spectacular than the previous year’s, resulting in bigger balloons and more floats. This year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will consist of 16 giant character balloons, 28 floats, Santa Claus, and more.