The Friday Flashback: Chicago Christmas Caravan
By Prescott Carlson in Miscellaneous on Nov 21, 2008 4:40PM
Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, and that means it's time for the annual McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade down State Street. While the parade is being touted as celebrating its 75th anniversary, that's somewhat misleading -- the parade has gone through a number of incarnations over the years. In fact, it just started being held on Thanksgiving Day in 1999, and wasn't officially called a "Thanksgiving Parade" until 2002.
The parade was first held on December 7, 1934, and was dubbed the "Chicago Christmas Caravan." The State Street Council thought it would be a feel good for citizens during the depression, and the mayor at the time, Edward Kelly, saw it as an opportunity to stimulate shopping along State Street -- it paid off with the highest grossing holiday shopping season in seven years. The annual tradition of the State Street Christmas Parade carried on until 1984, when a struggling city budget threatened the continuation of the parade and a private sponsor/director was sought. The McDonald Corporation stepped in, and the parade made some changes -- most notably, moving to Michigan Avenue to accommodate larger floats. It's went through several other sponsors and name changes, until 1999 when the parade was moved back to State Street (to the delight of traditionalists, but to the chagrin of Michigan Avenue retailers) and settled into its current date of Thanksgiving Day. It remains the only other Thanksgiving parade besides the Macy's (fie!) parade in New York City to be televised nationwide.
Here's a video pieced together from some home movies taken at a State Street Christmas Parade in the 60s, by a person who apparently has the same opinion of clowns that we do: