Macy's is a chain of mid-range American department stores with its flagship store in Herald Square, New York City, which has been billed as the "world's largest store" since completion of the Seventh Avenue addition in 1924. The company also operates two other national flagship stores, at San Francisco's Union Square and the former Marshall Field's flagship on State Street in the Chicago Loop.

The company also has several divisional flagship stores, including in Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis, and Seattle.

The company is also well-known for sponsoring the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a parade held on the streets of New York City annually since 1924.

History
Macy's was founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. Macy had established a dry goods store in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1851. He moved to New York City and established a new store named "R.H. Macy & Company" on the corner of 14th Street and 6th Avenue, later moving to 18th Street and Broadway, on the "Ladies' Mile", the 19th century elite shopping district, where it remained for nearly forty years.

The Macy's flagship department store with the famous brownstone at 34th and Broadway.
The Macy's viewed from the Empire State BuildingIn 1896, R. H. Macy's was acquired by Isidor Straus and his brother Nathan, who had previously sold merchandise in the store. In 1902 the flagship store moved further uptown to Herald Square at 34th Street and Broadway. Although the store initially consisted of just one building, it expanded through new construction and merging, eventually occupying almost the entire block bounded by 7th Avenue on the west, Broadway on the east, 34th Street on the south, and 35th Street on the north. The only exception is, to this date, one small brownstone on the corner of 34th and Broadway, which remains a separate property. Macy's rents it annually for a legendary sum and camouflages it with giant signs. This building is a remnant 19th-century building purchased in 1900 for US$375,000 by Robert Smith, Macy's neighbor at the old 14th Street location. The facade around the building was erected to camouflage it so that it would not detract from the Macy's store, and Macy's rented the building in later years from the heirs and their successors.

The original Broadway R.H. Macy Company and Store (building), was built in 1901–1902 by architects De Lemos & Cordes. It is sheathed in a Palladian facade, but has been updated in many details. Other additions to the west were added in 1924, 1928, and 1931, all designed by architect Robert D. Kohn. They are all in the Art Deco style. The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

The same problem presented itself when Macy's built a store on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst, Queens, New York. This resulted in an architecturally unique round department store on 90 percent of the lot, with a small privately owned house on the corner.

Macy's Entrance - 34th Street, New York

Expansion
Macy's underwent a period of expansion during the 1920s and 1930s. The company went public in 1922 and began to open up branch stores around New York and Long Island. Acquisitions were also made outside of the New York City region. Department stores in Toledo (LaSalle & Koch 1924), Atlanta (Davison-Paxon-Stokes 1929), Newark (L. Bamberger & Co. 1929), San Francisco (O'Connor Moffat & Company 1945), and Kansas City (John Taylor Dry Goods Co. 1947) were purchased during this time. O'Connor Moffat was renamed Macy's San Francisco in 1947, later becoming Macy's California, and John Taylor was renamed Macy's Missouri-Kansas in 1949.

Macy's New York began opening stores outside of its historic New York City–Long Island trade area in 1983 with a location at Aventura Mall in Aventura, Florida (a suburb of Miami), followed by several locations in Plantation, Florida (now relocated from the Fashion Mall to the Broward Mall since the Burdine's acquisition), Houston, New Orleans, and Dallas. Davison's in Atlanta was renamed Macy's Atlanta in early 1985 with the consolidation of an early incarnation of Macy's Midwest (former Taylor and LaSalle's stores in Kansas City and Toledo, respectively), but late in 1985, Macy's turned around and sold the former Midwest locations. Bamberger's, which had aggressively expanded throughout New Jersey, into the Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area in the 1960s and 1970s as well as into Nanuet, New York(southern Rockland County), and into the Baltimore Metropolitan area in the early 1980s, was renamed Macy's New Jersey in 1986.

Management buyout
In 1986 Edward Finkelstein, Chairman & CEO of R.H. Macy & Co., Inc., led a leveraged buy-out of the company and subsequently engaged in a takeover battle for Federated Department Stores, Inc., in 1988 that he lost to Canada's Campeau Corp. As part its settlement with Campeau, Macy's purchased Federated's California-based, fashion-oriented Bullock's and its high-end Bullocks Wilshire and I. Magnin divisions. It followed with a reorganization of its divisions into Macy's Northeast (former Macy's New York and Macy's New Jersey), Macy's South/Bullock's (Macy's Atlanta stores plus Macy's New York's operations in Texas, Florida and Louisiana), and Macy's California, the later including a semi-autonomous I. Magnin/Bullocks Wilshire organization. The Bullocks Wilshire stores were renamed I. Magnin in 1989.

Subsequently, R.H. Macy & Co., Inc., filed for bankruptcy on January 27, 1992, after which point its banks brought in a new management team, which shut several underperforming stores, jettisoned two-thirds of the luxury I. Magnin chain, and reduced Macy's to two divisions; Macy's East and Macy's West.