America’s Thanksgiving Parade at 100: Detroit Historical Museum exhibit traces a statewide tradition

The Detroit Historical Museum has opened "This is 100: America's Thanksgiving Parade," an interactive exhibition in the Robert and Mary Ann Bury Community Gallery where children can try on a clown costume, pose on Santa's throne, and stand face-to-face with the papier-mâché Big Heads that have leaned over Woodward Avenue since the first parade in 1924. The show runs Oct. 10, 2026, through January 3, 2027, carrying the centennial through the 100th parade itself and into the December holidays.

That first Thanksgiving morning procession began in 1924, organized by the J.L. Hudson Company—the same year Macy's launched its Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, placing Detroit's version among the country's oldest. The idea came from Charles F. Wendel, Hudson's display director, after he watched Toronto's Eaton's Santa Claus Parade. His first Detroit lineup included a horse-drawn Mother Goose float, four large papier-mâché heads and seven marching bands.

A century on Woodward

The 100th America's Thanksgiving Parade steps off Thursday, Nov. 26, 2026, at Kirby and Woodward at 8:45 a.m. and runs three miles to Congress and Woodward. "The 100th America's Thanksgiving Parade will mark a significant occasion in the history of our city and state," said Tony Michaels, president and CEO of The Parade Company.

Inside the exhibit, the milestones stretch along a timeline: Santa's first appearance in 1924, the first radio broadcast in 1931, the first celebrity guest in 1935—Detroit Free Press sports columnist Iffy the Dopester—the first parade held entirely on Woodward Avenue in 1956, and Lassie the Dog's 1964 grand-marshal turn. A child can run a finger down the wall from that first Santa to Lassie and back again, the whole century in one reach. The exhibit draws on artifacts from The Parade Company archives and the Detroit Historical Society collection, so the objects on display are the real materials of a century of curb mornings.

Those milestones sit alongside the parade's enduring pieces—the Big Heads, the Distinguished Clown Corps and the Fred Hill Briefcase Drill Team, along with the marching bands and giant balloons that have carried the morning for generations.

By 1925, the parade had grown to 26 horse-drawn floats hauled into place by roughly 300 Hudson's employees, and Santa became a regular closing feature that year—the procession literally built and walked by the store's own workers. Suspended in 1943 and 1944 because of World War II material shortages, the parade resumed under Hudson's sponsorship in 1945. Hudson's relinquished sponsorship around 1979 or 1980; the Michigan Thanksgiving Parade Foundation later took over, and since 1986 the nonprofit Parade Company has produced the parade, designing and building floats, costumes, balloons and papier-mâché heads with volunteer labor each year.

Hands-on for the next generation

Michaels said the organization is "thrilled to present this spectacular array of new and returning floats to the citizens of Detroit and Michigan."

The exhibit's hands-on invitations put those volunteer-made pieces within a child's reach. A costume corner offers clown costumes to try on, echoing the Distinguished Clown Corps that marches Woodward each year. A Santa's throne photo opportunity lets families step into the parade's most enduring closing image and take it home as a picture. And the papier-mâché Big Heads, built by volunteers since the first parade's four heads in 1924, stand scaled for a child to look straight at rather than crane upward from the curb.

Plan a visit

The exhibit is at the Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Ave., Detroit. The museum is open Wednesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m.; it is closed Monday and Tuesday. Admission is $15 for adults, $12 for seniors 65 and older and for students, educators, military, first responders and veterans, $8 for children ages 6 to 12, and free for children under 6 and for members.

On the morning of the parade itself, Nov. 26, the museum is hosting a Thanksgiving-morning viewing event from 7:30 to 11 a.m.; tickets for the event are currently sold out.

Dan Gilbert, founder and chairman of Rocket Companies, was named grand marshal of the 100th parade on Aug. 25, 2026, chosen for his business, philanthropic and community-development contributions to Detroit. "This is the biggest moment in our history," Michaels said, adding he "couldn't imagine a more perfect Grand Marshal for our 100th year."

A hundred years of volunteer-built floats, band practice and curb-sitting now sits in a single gallery where a child can try on a clown costume and sit on Santa's throne.