On July 8, 1907, impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. opened the first Ziegfeld Follies at the New York Theatre, a lavish revue that would transform American entertainment for decades. Inspired by the Folies Bergère in Paris, which had dazzled audiences since 1869 with its blend of music, comedy, and spectacular staging, Ziegfeld set out to create an American equivalent that married European sophistication with Broadway ambition. The inaugural show cost $13,000 to produce, a staggering sum for the era, and featured 60 performers, elaborate costumes, and an array of music and comedy acts strung together without a plot. The production emphasized visual splendor and feminine beauty, showcasing dancers and singers in increasingly daring and ornate numbers that pushed the boundaries of American propriety.

Ziegfeld's innovation lay not just in importing a formula but in perfecting it for American tastes and resources. He hired top songwriters, comedians, and choreographers, and he possessed an eye for discovering talent: early Follies featured performers who would become household names. The revue was structured as a succession of tableaux vivants and musical numbers, each more extravagant than the last, with a emphasis on the "Ziegfeld Girl", a carefully cultivated ideal of glamorous femininity. The production ran on Broadway and subsequently toured, establishing a template that would be repeated nearly every year through the 1920s, making it the most popular theatrical franchise of its era.

The Ziegfeld Follies represented a watershed moment in American popular culture. It democratized spectacle: where European cabaret catered to elite audiences, Ziegfeld's version was accessible to the growing middle class, costing between 50 cents and two dollars per ticket. The show influenced everything from fashion to dance styles and helped legitimize theatrical entertainment as art rather than mere vulgarity. Though the annual Follies eventually faded after Ziegfeld's death in 1932, they had already reshaped expectations for Broadway production values and helped establish the musical revue as a cornerstone of American theater, directly paving the way for the musical theater tradition that followed.