7. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began its annual appearance in 1924
An annual Thanksgiving Day Parade was held before 1924, though it wasn’t sponsored by Macy’s and it wasn’t held in Manhattan. It took place across the Hudson in Newark, sponsored by Bamberger’s Department Store. There were others around the country as well. In 1924 Macy’s, enamored by the free publicity and the enthusiastic response of shoppers, took over the parade, and it has been conducted annually ever since. For fifty years or so, Thanksgiving in New York had included Ragamuffin Day, during which children would parade the streets a la Beggar’s Night at Hallowe’en, acquiring free treats in exchange for not exhibiting mischievous behavior. Ragamuffin Day faded into American history, impelled to obscurity by the success of Macy’s promotion, which also introduced the Christmas shopping season earlier than it had ever been up to that time. It was a win-win situation.
It was a marionette manufacturer and performer named Anthony Sarg who first created the balloons which became the parade’s signature display, manufactured by Goodyear, and originally designed to be released, allowed to float to wherever nature deposited them. Identification tags were sewn into them in the hope that they would find their way back to their owner. To ensure they did, Macy’s promised a gift awarded to whoever returned them. During the World War II years, the parade was suspended, but it has grown in popularity ever since, with the finale being the arrival of Santa Claus, though Santa arrives at each Macy’s store in separate events, coordinated with local authorities and the locale of the store in which he will hold court for the season. In many mall locations, he doesn’t arrive at Macy’s at all, instead occupying a seat in the common area of the mall.