The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began in 1924 with floats, bands, clowns and live animals. Its visual story later came to include towering balloons and familiar characters, with a three-year pause during World War II. The archive photos and galleries available online are selective, not a photograph for every parade year; the newest dated gallery covered here is from 2024.
1924: floats, bands and zoo animals
Macy’s says employees organized the first event in 1924 under the name Macy’s Christmas Parade. The procession featured fanciful floats, employee bands, clowns and live animals from the Central Park Zoo, traveling from Harlem to Macy’s Herald Square. Macy’s Parade Archives includes a labeled image of a Miss Muffett float from that first parade.
View the Macy’s Parade Archives for selected images, including the 1924 float. The archive is curated; it should not be read as a complete record of every year.
1926–1932: the arrival of balloons
1926: a balloon-inspired float
Macy’s labels a 1926 Balloonatics float as an inspiration for the character balloons that followed. That description points to a design influence, not evidence that a character balloon flew in the parade that year.
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1927: balloons join the procession
Macy’s and the New York City Department of Records agree that balloons appeared in 1927. They differ on Felix the Cat: Macy’s account includes Felix among the debut lineup, while the city archive calls him the first recognizable cartoon character and dates his arrival to 1931. The sources therefore do not establish a single uncontested year for Felix’s debut.
The city archive says balloons were released at the parade’s end beginning in 1928. After balloons burst that year, they were redesigned; valves were added in 1929. The release tradition ended after a balloon collided with a plane over Queens in 1932.
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The New York City Department of Records’ balloon history provides this early timeline.
1941–1943: a wartime interruption
The parade paused for three years during World War II. Macy’s dates the suspension to 1941–1943, citing rubber and helium rationing as well as limits on large public gatherings. The city archive also describes a three-year wartime hiatus. The tradition resumed after the interruption.
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1947 onward: a growing cast of characters
Macy’s says the parade’s worldwide fame grew after its appearance in the film Miracle on 34th Street. The film did not create the event or its visual traditions, which had begun decades earlier.
Later photographs show how recognizable characters and live performances became part of the parade’s changing look. AP Images captions include the Rockettes in 1971; Betty Boop’s balloon collapsing in 1986; the Pink Panther in 1988; Bart Simpson’s debut in 1990; and Rocky and Bullwinkle’s return in 1996. These are dated moments from a selected photo sequence, not a complete visual record of those decades.
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1959: Popeye over Times Square
An Associated Press Images caption describes a helium-filled Popeye balloon passing over Times Square during the 33rd parade on November 26, 1959. The caption says 1,300,000 people watched. That number belongs to AP’s historical caption for this event, not to a current attendance estimate.
Browse AP Images’ selected historical parade photos for captioned images from years including 1929, 1930, 1933, 1946, 1959, 1971, 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1996.
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2024: a recent dated photo gallery
The Associated Press published a 21-image gallery from the parade held on November 28, 2024, with balloons, floats, performers and spectators. AP described the event as taking place 100 years after the first parade. The gallery offers a recent snapshot of the procession, not a complete history of its images.
See AP News’ 2024 parade photo gallery. Captions identify the pictured subjects, photographers and event date.
What the available photo record can—and cannot—show
The Macy’s archive and AP galleries make it possible to compare selected moments: live animals and early floats, the introduction of balloons, later character imagery, performers and changing parade scenes. But years without a photo in these collections should not be mistaken for years without a parade. These are selective archives, not a year-by-year catalog.
Macy’s is promoting a centennial celebration for 2026, including centennial inflatables, collaborations and a history book. Those are announcements about the upcoming centennial, not photographs of a completed 2026 parade.
Before reproducing archival photographs, check the relevant image credit and reuse terms. The presence of a photograph on an archive or news page does not by itself grant permission to republish it.
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