Black Friday

This week is Thanksgiving, and with it comes what has become the busiest shopping day of the year. But How long has it been this way? Where'd the name 'Black Friday' come from? Were other days called 'Black Friday'?

Black Friday as seen in a Nebraska Furniture Mart in Kansas City: November 27, 2009

The term 'Black Friday' has been used for things other than shopping. The first case of its use was for the Financial Crisis of 1869, when the price of gold collapsed because of two stock speculators who tried to corner the market.

The first use of the term in reference to the day after Thanksgiving came from Philadelphia around 1961. An article was published around that time talking about the traffic jams and headaches for business owners. This article talked about both 'Black Friday' and the day after, 'Black Saturday'. They wanted to make things safer and more fluid, which would make these two days 'Big Friday' and 'Big Saturday'. The next time it was really referenced in the media at large was in 1966. The name was growing in the Philadelphia region. It gained a national understanding in 1975 when it was published in a New York Times article on the Army-Navy football game and two other articles in other periodicals. Even though it became national at that time, it still took awhile for the name to spread across the US. In 1985, a Philadelphia periodical reported that retailers in Cincinnati and Los Angeles didn't kow the term yet.

How long has 'Black Friday' been the biggest shopping day? Not that long actually. Once the media grabbed onto it, the idea exploded. From 1993-2001, 'Black Friday' was actually ranked between #5 and #10 on the busiest shopping days of the year. What was usually the busiest? The Saturday before Christmas. The first time that it actually ranked as the busiest shopping day was in 2003. In 2004, it ranked second. However, from 2005 on, it has been the busiest.



Lines to get into Target in Fargo, ND: November 25, 2011

 So why is 'Black Friday' historically known as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season? There are two reasons for this. Firstly, no department stores would advertise their deals until that Friday. Secondly, the parades that were hosted on that Friday (usually sponsored by department stores at the time, such as Macy's) had Santa at the end, a symbol for initiating the Christmas season. It's only been in recent years that Christmas advertising of deals has been before Thanksgiving. Recent trends have stores opening on Thursday night. Penned in 2005, 'Cyber Monday' follows to help those to get deals online if you couldn't find what you were looking for the previous Friday or just didn't want to brave the crowds. Now, the deals flow from Thursday night through Monday. We'll see what the future holds.

If you decide to brave the crows this Friday, good luck and stay safe!