Easter parade

The Easter parade is an American cultural event consisting of a promenade on Easter Sunday. Typically, it is an informal and unorganized event. The parade is most closely associated with Fifth Avenue in New York City, but smaller parades are often held in other cities. Persons participating in an Easter parade traditionally dress in fine new clothing, particularly ladies' hats, and strive to show it off to others. Starting as a spontaneous event in the 1870's, the New York parade became increasingly popular into the mid-twentieth century—in 1947, it was estimated to draw over a million persons. By 2000 its popularity had declined significantly, drawing only 30,000 people in 2008.

Ancient origins

Having new clothes for Easter had deep roots in European religious customs. Sacred times called for special forms of dress to mark the holy celebration. Distinctive garb for Easter, like one's "Sunday best" and the special vestments of priests, for centuries had shown the solemnity and sacredness of the season. There is an old proverb that if on Easter Sunday some part of one's outfit is not new, one will not enjoy good luck during the year.

History in New York

From the 1880's through the 1950's, New York's Easter parade was one of the main cultural expressions of Easter in the United States. It was one of the fundamental ways that Easter was identified and celebrated.

The seeds of the parade were sown in New York's highly ornamented churches—Gothic buildings such as Trinity Episcopal Church, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and St. Thomas' Episcopal Church. In the mid-nineteenth century, these and other churches began decorating their sanctuaries with Easter flowers. These displays soon became defining examples of style, taste, abundance, and novelty, and those who attended the churches began to incorporate these values into their own dress. In 1873, a newspaper report about Easter at Christ Church said "More than half the congregation were ladies, who displayed all the gorgeous and marvelous articles of dress,... and the appearance of the body of the church thus vied in effect and magnificence with the pleasant and tasteful array of flowers which decorated the chancel."

By the 1880s, the promenade had become a vast spectacle, clearly defined as an afternoon religious and cultural event for the well-to-do, who would visit the beautiful churches to see the beautiful flowers. People from the poorer and middle classes would attend it to learn about the latest trends in fashion. The Easter parade had become New York's and the country's great annual fashion show.

A few years before that, dry goods merchants and milleners had begun commercial promotion of Easter and the Easter parade. A dozen years later, there was no bigger annual event in retailing; Easter was as important back then as Christmas is today.

Not all observers were enthused about the display of wealth and beauty. During the Great Depression, groups of unemployed workers paraded in worn-out clothing, carrying banners comparing the cost of one Fifth Avenue gown to a year's worth of welfare relief for one of themselves. Cranks and demagogues often used the parade to attract public attention and to plead their questionable causes.

By the mid-twentieth century, the parade's religious aspects had faded, and it was mostly seen as a demonstration of American prosperity. The year 1946 saw the recurrence of stunts, pranks, and extravagant behavior. In 1947, the State Department's Voice of America broadcast a description of the Fifth Avenue parade to the Soviet Union, the idea being to show the economic inferiority of the Soviet system. In 1955, The Saturday Evening Post stated that New York's springtime pageant was only an incidental celebration of a religious holiday, and had become a reflection of the fact that, in America, a person was as good as the clothes and other goods he or she was able to buy. The parade itself had become an unstructured, boundless event, with no apparent beginning, ending, organization, or purpose. What had begun in the 1870's as a parade of refinement and religious display had become merely an ostentatious frolic.

In 2008, New York's Easter parade has become an echo of Halloween, with people and pets in outlandish costumes, and outlandish hats featuring themes such as live birds in flowery cages.

Other venues

As New York's parade grew in prominence, other places developed their own versions. Philadelphia and Boston were among these, as were Coney Island and Atlantic City, where the parades became tourist attractions. In 1925, Coney Island merchants hired fifty show girls to parade in bathing suits as part of the event. The crowds were huge. During the 1920's, Atlantic City's parade attracted 200,000 and more. The parade there had become a vacation carnival of costuming and consumption—a rollicking amusement for the tourist.

In the 21st century, Easter parades are conducted in many cities, with prominent ones in New Orleans (25th annual parade) and Toronto (42nd annual).