This year marks the 95th anniversary of a November tradition.
The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade began in 1924. In those days, there were no balloons "flying" above the parade, guided by a group of volunteers. No television coverage, of course, that was still 25 years away at the minimum.
We see the parade as the beginning of the countdown to Christmas, and it just happens that we've located this video, which collects newsreel footage of the parades from 1927-29.
Ok, so there were balloons, but not as many as are commissioned on a year-to-year basis now. We see volunteers wearing character masks, like the mascot heads Lee Corso gets to model on ESPN during college football season. I would venture to guess that it is television, naturally, that has allowed the parade to swell to a 3 hour time frame for as long as you and I have been alive or sooner.
Savor the history. Happy Thanksgiving. We'll see you tomorrow.
2 comments:
his is fascinating to watch! It may not be as grand as recent decades have been, but it still seems quite entertaining!
I hope whomever came up with the idea got a huge raise for coming up with this promotion for the store and encouraging shoppers to come down for the Christmas season!
I think there's a few online sources that could tell the story.
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