Black & White Photos Of Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Fuel Trips Down Memory Lane

Nostalgic Tradition Is A Thanksgiving Day Staple For Many Families

For many American households, the joy of Thanksgiving begins hours before the big meal, when the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade airs on television. It’s a fun, family-friendly event that still draws children and adults together, one that unofficially kicks off the busy holiday season.

Originally called the Macy’s Christmas Parade, the parade started in 1924. It initially featured live animals, but they were replaced by larger-than-life balloons a few years later. The first balloon was modeled after Felix the Cat. This vintage photo, possibly taken in 1932, features that very character. By scanning such photos to digital format, the blogger was able to share with many people around the world the old pictures she had stumbled upon at a garage sale.

Children’s book illustrator Anthony Frederick “Tony” Sarg is the man behind the signature balloons. In 1935, he also created the mechanically animated window displays that Macy’s has become well known for. Sarg’s balloons were essentially marionettes turned upside down, with the controls under instead of over the puppets/balloons. During one point in the parade’s history, those balloons were released into the air, where they would float for days at a time. With so many people scanning photos to digital format for uploading and sharing, you can find plenty of old, black-and-white parade images online.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade is closely associated with those balloons. Sarg, their creator, was born in Guatamala in 1880 to a German father and English mother. Seven years later, his family moved back to Germany. He eventually married an American woman and developed an interest in puppetry while living in England. World War I prompted Sarg to move his family to the United States (his wife was from Ohio). His career really took off after those Macy’s balloons, but he was forced to file for bankruptcy in the late ‘30s.

Familiar balloon characters such as Popeye, Superman and Kermit the Frog appeared in later decades. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was not held during World War II (1942-1944), but it returned in 1945, and was first broadcast on a national basis in 1948 on NBC. This year, you can catch it on the same network at 9 a.m. Thanksgiving Day.