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Listen to the story.

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Ashland Elementary: Balloons Over Broadway

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Uploaded by Ashland Elementary School (PWCPS) on 2014-11-26.

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Tony ordered the balloons to be filled not just with air but with helium too. Since helium is lighter than air, it would make the balloons rise. (p. 23)

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the air-filled rubber bags wobbled down the avenues, propped up by wooden sticks. (p. 16)

The first balloons used in the parade were created with the help of a blimp company located in Ohio.

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were immigrants and as the holidays approached they missed their own holiday traditions of music and dancing in the streets. Macy's agreed to put on a parade for their employees, and they hired Tony to help. (p. 6)

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the Tony Sarg marionettes began performing on Broadway. (p. 3)

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A brief history of the Macy's  Thanksgiving Day Parade and the balloons that were displayed.

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Ninety years of the Macy's Parade: From the 1930s to today, a history of America's favorite

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Ninety years of the Macy's Parade: From the 1930s to today, a history of America's favorite Thanksgiving spectacle Tomorrow will see the arrival of Macy's 88th Thanksgiving Parade in New York City, a festive tradition that has spanned almost a century.

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Read a Smithsonian article about Tony Sarg and see images of the first balloons created.

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A Thursday morning tradition came with strings attached

smithsonian.com

The first Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade (then known as the Macy's Christmas Parade) was held in 1924 and culminated in front of Macy's department store in New York City, where the elaborate holiday window displays were unveiled. Thousands gathered to see the displays, which were designed by Anthony Frederick Sarg, a noted puppeteer and theatrical designer. Sarg was also the artistic director / mastermind of the parade and, during the fourth annual Macy's Christmas Parade in 1927, he introduced the enormous inflatable cartoons and caricatures that would become almost synonymous with the annual holiday tradition.

Creativity was in Sarg's genes. Born in Germany, his father was an artist, his grandfather a wood-carver, and his grandmother was a painter who gave the young Sarg a collection of mechanical toys that may have inspired the imagination of the burgeoning designer. But it wasn't until he saw a performance by famed puppeteer Thomas Holden, who essentially invented the marionette, that Sarg found his calling. He began experimenting with puppet designs and stagings around 1917, eventually earning renown for his particularly sophisticated puppet shows that included performances of Faust and Don Quixote. After World War I, Sarg moved to New York City and quickly gained a reputation as a practical joker, the life of the party and a tireless worker. In his various ventures, the designer, inventor and illustrator worked on cartoons, children's books, mechanical toys, advertising and of course, window displays and balloons.

These first parade balloons were filled with oxygen not helium, and were propped up by teams of puppeteers - usually just Macy's employees drafted into parade service. These balloons, such as 1920s biggest cartoon star Felix the Cat (above), were cruder and smaller than today's Godzilla-like monsters but still charmed and captivated the throngs of onlookers who came to ring in the holiday season.

Other early balloons included a 20-foot-long elephant, a 60-foot-long tiger and an enormous hummingbird. In 1928, the parade culminated with a release of the now-helium-filled balloons into the skies above the city. The stunt was a crowd-pleaser and the following year, the balloons were designed with release valves to make their ascent easier and Macy's offered rewards for their capture and return. The tradition that continued until 1932, when a daredevil pilot thought it would be fun to capture the balloons with her biplane and nearly crashed when the rubberized canvas wrapped itself around the plane's wing.

The rubberized silk balloons were produced by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, and their archives at the University of Akron include some amazing pictures of these early behemoths.

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About Jimmy Stamp

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The Puppeteer Who Brought Balloons to the Thanksgiving Day Parade

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smithsonian.com The first Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade (then known as the Macy's Christmas Parade) was held in 1924 and culminated in front of Macy's department store in New York City, where the elaborate holiday window displays were unveiled. Thousands gathered to see the displays, which were designed by Anthony Frederick Sarg, a noted puppeteer and theatrical designer.

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Balloons Over Broadway is a true story about the man who invented the giant balloons that have become such an important aspect of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This story follows the life of Tony Sarg in a kid-friendly way that makes non-fiction texts fascinating. From his childhood inventions to his greatest works, Balloons Over Broadway shows students the importance of being creative and hard working.

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became a marionette man when he was only six years old. (p. 1)

He was always inventing and playing with different ways of controlling things using pulleys and string.

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Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011