39 Striking Vintage Thanksgiving Photos From The Past Century

Every photo in this article is a snapshot of a time when everything was a little bit more simple, at least on the outside. A time that people can look back on fondly is rarely something that's taken lightly, and it's never too soon to look back on happy memories. These rare moments, old photographs of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades, pictures of early-to-mid-20th century city dwellers enjoying their holiday, and mementos of traditions long gone are a reminder to cherish the present, because in the end it's all going to be history.

A rare photo of a young boy in Washington D.C. discovering his love of pumpkin pie, for starters, shows just the beginning of how much people have always loved Thanksgiving as a holiday. The 20th century showed such a huge change in what people saw this holiday as, that it's barely recognizable from where it started, but still has all the same heart, charm, and soul that it did back then. Here's what it looked like before most of you were born...

"Thanksgiving maskers" were a tradition of people in the pre-Trick-Or-Treat era who were a leftover of the 19th century tradition where people would go door-to-door asking for money or food. Sometimes, these people would even play music in exchange for help in the form of money or food. This was before Halloween became the costumed holiday it is today, and was celebrated on Thanksgiving because people had the most spare food then, given that it's The U.S.'s day of giving, gratitude, and lovable gluttony. This rare photo shows just how different streets looked on Thanksgiving in the early 20th century.

While "Thanksgiving masking" was a tradition that was held mainly in New York City, candy stores around the country started selling costumes, and the beginning of Halloween marketing was starting to rear its head. The "Ragamuffin" character became so common that Thanksgiving would sometimes even be called "Ragamuffin Day." 

A 1950s family pulling the turkey out of the oven as the grandfather holds the grandchildren.

About 17 minutes before any Thanksgiving dinner, this is something that every American can relate to. It's just sitting right there. It's so close, but no cigar (but back then, maybe cigar, but definitely no turkey). 

A crowd watching Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York City

Outdoor markets are still very much common in New York, but you'd be hard-pressed to find fully-plumed turkeys being sold, unrefrigerated, on the streets these days. 

A small five-year-old boy named Nicky enjoys a turkey leg like a big boy while sitting on a windowsill with stairs leading up to it as clothes dry from hangers all around the city. Army's Nursery. 

Because those less fortunate than us deserve love on Thanksgiving, these kids all donated 120 pennies in plates, representing an empty table setting (and a donation) for British kids affected by the war.

A beautiful, simple stove, and what looks to be a fairly bare turkey at this point, delivering Thanksgiving dinner to a lucky family in the 1930s. 

Even at the turn of the century, families spent their post-food-coma bliss challenging each other at various games until everyone falls asleep and all the weird stuff gets put into plastic bags. 

A sharecropper settlement from Poplar Bluff, Missouri, only had this jar of picked tomatoes to share over Thanksgiving, but were thankful none the less. Their group of sharecroppers had recently participated in a demonstration in 1939 to protest their lot in life.

"Some pretty queer looking pedestrians can be observed at large gatherings at Broadway, but some of the creatures who make their way down the famed thoroughfare in the annual Macy Thanksgiving Parade are enough to faze even a taxi driver. Here throngs of New Yorkers jamming Columbus Circle gape as a flying fish swings onto Broadway from Central Park West." Look at that fish. 

Marilyn Monroe posted for this scandalous photo from 1950, in which she was dressed both as a go-go girl and a pilgrim/puritan. 

Archetypes, symbols of what people liked, and hopeful icons of the future adorned Macy's Thanksgiving Day parades of the past. This spaceman from the 1950s preceded humanity's first actual moon landing by over a decade. 

Apples were a staple for Thanksgiving in the early 20th century, and very few photos encapsulate that fact more than this one. A beautiful dinner being delivered by three men, where the biggest platter contained apples, shows why so many people in this actual article are pictures just holding apples.

Basically a Normal Rockwell painting, this classic American Thanksgiving Dinner taking place in at a Pennsylvania country home was the epitome of how people spent Thanksgiving in 1940 (and, mostly, how they spend it today). 

While not a time-honored tradition, some schools still provide a "Thanksgiving version" of their lunch time meal before Thanksgiving break. 

Diana Ross performed on The Daily News's "Big Apple" float for the 1979 Macy's Day Parade where thousands of people wanted a glimpse at the pop superstar. 

In front of a beautiful car, a farmer seems to be showing a woman in fashionable '20s garb a mildly aggressive-looking turkey.

The lack of giant balloons, the amount of traffic still driving through the parade, and the fact that most of these aren't promoting any big brands (other than, of course, Macy's), set this apart from Thanksgiving Day parades today. Please feel free to notice the amount of hats being worn as well. That's a lot of hats. 

Being transported from Minnesota to Washington D.C., these turkeys were meant for new president Herbert Hoover. The fact that the people pictured here looked so happy, right after the event which triggered The Great Depression, is a sign of how quickly things can change for everyone. And again, hats. People wore all kinds of hats. 

First lady Eleanor Roosevelt and President Franklin D. Roosevelt carving a turkey for a Thanksgiving benefit dinner for polio patients is a wholesome image of a great president. Happy children smiling at each other in a perfectly-decorated room are the essence of Thanksgiving dinner.

Two women play with a decorative wishbone as the one in the middle holds a turkey that was later given to president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

An angry-looking 35 lb. turkey is sized up by then-President Harry S. Truman at the White House Rose Garden in preparation for Thanksgiving. The Tom Turkey came all the way from Oregon to get to the president, and their suits could not be more demonstrative of the year, 1952.

At the Georgia National Golf Course, then-President Ike Eisenhower enjoyed a very textbook Thanksgiving dinner with his beautiful family in 1953.

Always one to take a great photograph, president JFK is seen here laughing with a turkey that has a very morbidly-hilarious message around its neck. Everyone is having a wonderful time on this day in November, 1963.

President LBJ was presented with an enormous 40 lb. turkey on November 16, and did not look as pleased as most presidents when being presented with their annual turkeys. 

This diverse group of kids perform at a Thanksgiving pageant at their school in the late '70s. 

Lyndon B. Johnson didn't seem to love this whole Tom Turkey tradition given to him by the turkey industry, so this time, the Vice President Richard Nixon received the turkey in his stead.

Only vaguely threatening, Popeye has been a staple of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade since the character has been around. Huge balloons weren't always a part of the Macy's Day Parade festivities, but as soon as they were, the department store's kid-friendly branding was solidified. 

A staple of the Macy's Day parade, Mickey and Donald showed up in 1972 to celebrate the very first anniversary of Disney World.

This "Tom Turkey" float in 1984 closely followed by a Donald Duck who was, at the time, celebrating his 50th anniversary as a character. 

Mickey Mouse made headlines for being such a huge float and holding up traffic for 25 whole minutes in this early version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

An incredible show of how times have changed, children dress up with feathers in their caps as they get ready to play at a Thanksgiving pageant in 1910

Two men eating what looks to be a very browned turkey on fine china with plenty of side dishes. Is that a plate of marshmallows in there? There's a lot more simple food and fruit on plates from the early 20th century that the kind of Top Chef stuff that people make these days. 

These parade floats show a giant fish (a staple in early parades), a 60-ft-long tiger balloon, and, for the first time, Santa Claus in New York City. 1929 was one of the first years for giant balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. One notable difference being a huge cigar store being front and center of this photograph.