It’s the morning of Thanksgiving: you come downstairs, turn the TV on NBC and sit down on the couch. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has begun and you try to identify as many of the balloon cartoons as you can. You see the people walking in the parade, but also the people on the sidelines cheering for everyone and all of the floats. You feel happy and ready to see your family to celebrate Thanksgiving.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began in 1924, but originally it was a “Christmas Parade” to get people excited for the upcoming holiday and start their holiday shopping. Shortly after this, it was renamed as the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1927. The parade was designed to help promote the store and bring in more customers. Not only did it promote the store, but also featured the immigrant employees that worked at Macy’s. Along with the employees, the parade included live animals. The animals were supposed to represent a large-scale circus to help again attract customers and help the Central Park Zoo.
Many years pass and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a major success. They were so successful they replaced the live animals with character balloons in 1927. They started out with three very large balloons, including Felix the cat, a dinosaur and a dachshund dog. Felix the cat was a well known cartoon and very recognizable so he was chosen for that reason. The dinosaur was chosen because it was used to create a sense of awe and it was just such an exciting and invigorating sight due to how large it was. The dinosaur was about 60 feet long. The dachshund was then chosen as a way to represent the zoo animals but also to impress the crowds. These balloons were not yet filled with helium either. People had to hold onto sticks in order to keep the animals up in the air. It wasn’t until a year later where helium was used to keep the animals in the sky.
A few years later, the parade unfortunately came to a pause. Due to World War II, the parade was suspended from 1942-1944. During this time period though, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was able to help the United States by providing rubber and helium they would have used for their parade and instead giving it over to be repurposed. Macy’s donated over 650 pounds of deflated balloons to the war efforts. Then finally when the war was over and Americans returned home in 1945, the parade resumed and they were able to feature Uncle Sam, who represents the American heroes who gave up their lives to fight.
In 1948, the parade was nationally broadcast for the first time. Launched across all of the United States, the coverage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was now able to be seen on television. The parade was able to build a community for those who were prepared to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and build anticipation for football games.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was doing very well in the past and now, 100 years later, it is even bigger and more successful. The parade now includes 34 floats and it contains so many prominent characters that children are able to recognize. The parade also expanded to a two and a half mile route that takes three to three and half hours to complete. This time also depends on when a person starts watching the parade, so sometimes it seems to take longer than normal. The parade begins at 8:30 a.m. and usually ends at 12 p.m. Many families begin their Thanksgiving festivals with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and it has become part of American culture. It is not a small parade anymore; it has grown and improved so much since 1924 and is recognized across the whole country. The parade brings joy to so many families and helps bring holiday cheer.
