1920 - Philadelphia
The first Thanksgiving parade was in Philadelphia in 1920. It was the brainchild of Ellis Gimbel, the 10th of 14 children born of Gimbels Department store founder, Adam Gimbel. Ellis conceived of the parade as a marketing ploy designed to remind his fellow Philadelphians that the holiday season was upon them.
As a reminder that his store stocked everything that they would need for the holiday season, the parade ended right in front of Gimbels. While the first parade was comprised of a mere fifty Gimbels employees, it quickly grew. The parade typically closes with a float containing jolly old Saint Nick himself.
Santa would scale a fire truck ladder to the eighth floor of the building. Of course, the crowd knew the eighth floor housed Gimbels’ “Toyland.
1924 - New York
In New York, Macy’s launched their “Christmas Parade” (on Thanksgiving) in 1924. To match the nursery-rhyme theme in Macy’s Christmas window display, the floats featured Mother Goose favorites and Macy’s employees dressed as clowns, cowboys and sword-wielding knights. A menagerie of animals on loan from the Central Park Zoo—including bears, elephants, camels and monkeys—offered a circus-like atmosphere.
Macy’s Parade quickly became a New York holiday tradition to the joy of nearly all except the zoo animals. So the animals were replaced by less-surly and more-obedient character balloons.
After the balloon debut with Felix the Cat in 1927, the balloons quickly became the parade’s signature attractions.
During World War II, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was suspended, due to demand for rubber and helium.
In 1945, the parade resumed and two years later, the film Miracle on 34th Street, featuring footage from the 1946 parade, made the Macy’s Parade a household name.
The following year, the parade was broadcast on national television for the very first time. Television made the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade a nation-wide tradition that families across the nation still enjoy.