Black Friday: Its History and How Its Name Originated
When most people hear the term "Black Friday" today, one of the immediate associations with it is the wide array of discounted products offered by major retailers across the United States.
However, if people were to go back to the earlier days, they would realize that the term "Black Friday" was coined and used for a wide variety of reasons.
The first-ever recorded use of the term "Black Friday" in the United States was in the late 19th century when the gold market sank. The crisis was caused by speculators and Wall Street financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk, who deliberately bought all the gold that they could until there was a shortage.
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In the natural sense of economy, the low availability of gold causes a high demand, and this would let Gould and Fisk sell the gold that they kept at a much higher price. The crisis broke on Friday, Sept. 24, 1869.
This historical fact shows the irony between how "Black Friday" was first used and how a lot of people understand it today.
According to The Balance, there was a time in the 1950s when many employees called in sick on the day after Thanksgiving. They reportedly did this so that they could have a four-day vacation or use it to start their Christmas shopping, especially since a lot of retailers were likely to offer major discounts.
About a decade later, the term "Black Friday" made a comeback but it had a not-so-pleasant connotation to it. In the 1960s, the Friday after Thanksgiving was one of the days the police in Philadelphia dreaded.
With retail stores offering major discounts, a huge volume of people from the suburbs would come early to the city and would cause major traffic congestion. There were also huge crowds in stores. These instances caused law enforcement officers to refer to it as Black Friday.
Meanwhile, there is also an unconfirmed theory on how the term "Black Friday" was coined. There were claims that this day referred to a time in the 1800s when traders offered slaves for much lower prices in auctions. However, reports argued that this has yet to be proven with facts.
With so many unfortunate associations to the term "Black Friday," cable TV network History explained that retailers found a way to provide a more positive meaning to it in the late '80s.
When retailers are doing their accounting, they mark the profit figures in black and the losses in red. And since the day after Thanksgiving had naturally been a good day for businesses to make a profit, this gave Black Friday a more positive story behind its name.
This year, Black Friday falls on Nov. 24.
