The History of Black Friday
From a financial crisis to the world's biggest shopping day.
The term "Black Friday" has a surprisingly dark origin, and it had nothing to do with shopping. The first recorded use of the term was on September 24, 1869, when two Wall Street financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, attempted to corner the gold market, leading to a financial crash. The day was dubbed "Black Friday" due to the catastrophic impact on the nation's economy.
The Philadelphia Story
The link to post-Thanksgiving shopping began in Philadelphia in the 1950s and 60s. The city's police department used the term "Black Friday" to describe the chaos that ensued on the day after Thanksgiving. Hordes of suburban shoppers and tourists flooded the city for the annual Army-Navy football game, creating massive traffic jams, and shoplifters would take advantage of the busy stores.
From "Big Friday" to Black Friday
Store owners in Philadelphia hated the term's negative connotations and tried to rebrand the day as "Big Friday." However, the new name never stuck, and "Black Friday" eventually spread to the rest of the country by the late 1980s.
The "In the Black" Myth
A more positive (and likely revisionist) explanation for the term emerged in the 1980s. This theory posits that "Black Friday" is the day when retailers finally turn a profit for the year. In traditional accounting, losses were recorded in red ink, while profits were recorded in black ink. The massive sales on the day after Thanksgiving supposedly pushed retailers "into the black."
While this is a compelling story, the Philadelphia origin is the historically accurate one. The "in the black" concept was a clever marketing spin to transform a negative term into a positive one.
The Evolution into a Global Event
In recent decades, Black Friday has transformed from a single-day event in the US into a global shopping phenomenon. Key changes include:
- Starting Earlier: Deals began leaking earlier and earlier, eventually moving into Thanksgiving Day itself, and now often span the entire week.
- Online Dominance: The rise of e-commerce and its own dedicated day, Cyber Monday, has shifted much of the focus online.
- Global Adoption: Countries around the world, including South Africa, the UK, and Brazil, have adopted Black Friday as a major retail event, even without the Thanksgiving holiday to anchor it.
Today, Black Friday is less about a single day of in-store chaos and more about a multi-week period of promotions across all retail channels. And tools like our own DealFinder have become essential for navigating the noise and finding genuine value.