I learned this today. Black Friday started in the 1950s when police in Philadelphia had to deal with the crowds and mayhem that came after Thanksgiving. Thousands of people came into the city for the Army-Navy football game that was held on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving every year.
These days, Black Friday refers to the Friday after Thanksgiving in America. It is the day where the Christmas shopping season starts. A lot of shops (online as well), offer big discounts to get rid of old stock and make room for the new stock coming in. It is usually the busiest shopping day of the year and, thanks in part to Amazon, the tradition has gradually spread to other countries.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “Black Friday” was first used in 1610 to colloquially refer to any Friday that had exams on it. This was not a widely used term though because not many people were in education in 1610.
The first widespread use of the term “Black Friday” was on September 24, 1869. However, it had nothing to do with shopping and the “black” was used negatively. It referred to a crash in the American gold market. Two unethical businessmen, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, conspired with each other to buy as much gold as they could, raise the price, and then sell for a profit. The price of gold started to rise and many people jumped in on the action. President Ulysses S. Grant heard about what they were doing and ordered his treasury to sell $4 million of government gold to bring the price of gold down and stop the conspiracy. It worked, but the price of gold plummeted, and many people were ruined. This happened on September 24th, 1869: Black Friday.
Since then, Black Friday has been used to refer to anything bad that happens on a Friday. 1873, the crash of the Vienna Stock Exchange. 1881, a fishing disaster in Eyemouth. 1910, a day of police brutality against women’s suffragettes in England. 1916, a storm on Lake Erie. 1919, the Battle of George Square. 1939, the Italian invasion of Albania. And on to the present day.
However, the use of Black Friday to coincide with Thanksgiving began in 1950. In 1951 and 1952, two groups of people started to use it. Employers began to call the Friday after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” because a lot of workers would call in “sick” to get a three-day weekend. At the same time, police in Philadelphia were using the term to refer to the crowds and congestion that were caused by the Army-Navy football game and people starting their Christmas shopping at the same time. Police couldn’t take the day off and had to work 12-hour shifts. They started calling it “Black Friday” and “Black Saturday”.
In 1961, two Philadelphia newspapers used the expression “Black Friday” to refer to the busiest shopping day after Thanksgiving. Retailers in Philadelphia didn’t like the expression because it only really had negative connotations. They tried to get the newspapers to change it to “Big Friday”, but they wouldn’t.
Black Friday caught on in Philadelphia and slowly spread to other American cities during the 1960s and 1970s. Retailers realized there was nothing they could do about it, so they decided to put a positive spin on it. In the 1980s, they started to use the story that the “black” meant “profit”. Businesses always write their profits in black ink and their losses in red ink. A company that is “in the red” is losing money and a company that is “in the black” is secure. Retailers decided to make the first Friday after Thanksgiving a day when businesses could get “back in the black”. And that reasoning has stuck.
Incidentally, Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday in November and not the last because retailers wanted a longer Christmas shopping season. President Franklin D Roosevelt bowed to the retail pressure in 1939 and passed a proclamation that moved Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in November.
So, Black Friday started as a day with negative connotations. Police in Philadelphia used to use it to refer to the first Friday after Thanksgiving when people would crowd into the city for the Army-Navy football game and the start of the Christmas shopping season. The city would be mayhem and the police would have to work longer shifts. In the 1980s, retailers objected to the term “black” meaning “bad” and started using it to mean that businesses were back in profit. And that is what most people think today. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping)
https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/the-origins-of-black-friday/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1869)
https://www.history.com/news/black-friday-thanksgiving-origins-history
https://www.dictionary.com/e/black-friday/
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-it-called-black-friday-2017-11
https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Friday