[{"selector":"#anim-e6d6e1b9-b822-4276-9258-c7e381406c16","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":500,"duration":600,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.2, 0.6, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] [{"selector":"#anim-5be593b9-be36-4965-9c23-9516390be042","keyframes":{"transform":["translate3d(-116.98718%, 0px, 0)","translate3d(0px, 0px, 0)"]},"delay":500,"duration":600,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.2, 0.6, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] What’s the Real History of Black Friday? Read More

Real History

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Real History

The retail bonanza known as Black Friday is now an integral part of many Thanksgiving celebrations, but this holiday tradition has darker roots than you might imagine.

Real History

The first recorded use of the term “Black Friday” was applied not to post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping but to financial crisis: specifically, the crash of the U.S. gold market on September 24, 1869.

Real History

Two notoriously ruthless Wall Street financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, worked together to buy up as much as they could of the nation’s gold, hoping to drive the price sky-high and sell it for astonishing profits.

Real History

On that Friday in September, the conspiracy finally unraveled, sending the stock market into free-fall and bankrupting everyone from Wall Street barons to farmers.

Real History

The most commonly repeated story behind the Thanksgiving shopping-related Black Friday tradition links it to retailers.

Real History

As the story goes, after an entire year of operating at a loss (“in the red”) stores would supposedly earn a profit (“went into the black”) on the day after Thanksgiving, because holiday shoppers blew so much money on discounted merchandise.

Real History

Though it’s true that retail companies used to record losses in red and profits in black when doing their accounting, this version of Black Friday’s origin is the officially sanctioned—but inaccurate—story behind the tradition.

Real History

In recent years, another myth has surfaced that gives a particularly ugly twist to the tradition, claiming that back in the 1800s Southern plantation owners could buy enslaved workers at a discount on the day after Thanksgiving.

Real History

Though this version of Black Friday’s roots has understandably led some to call for a boycott of the retail holiday, it has no basis in fact.

Real History

The real history behind Black Friday, however, is not as sunny as retailers might have you believe.

Real History

Back in the 1950s, police in the city of Philadelphia used the term to describe the chaos that ensued on the day after Thanksgiving, when hordes of suburban shoppers and tourists flooded into the city in advance of the big Army-Navy football game held on that Saturday every year.

Real History

Not only would Philly cops not be able to take the day off, but they would have to work extra-long shifts dealing with the additional crowds and traffic.

Real History

Shoplifters would also take advantage of the bedlam in stores to make off with merchandise, adding to the law enforcement headache.

Real History

By 1961, “Black Friday” had caught on in Philadelphia, to the extent that the city’s merchants and boosters tried unsuccessfully to change it to “Big Friday” in order to remove the negative connotations.

Real History

The term didn’t spread to the rest of the country until much later, however, and as recently as 1985 it wasn’t in common use nationwide.

Real History

Sometime in the late 1980s, however, retailers found a way to reinvent Black Friday and turn it into something that reflected positively, rather than negatively, on them and their customers.

Real History

The result was the “red to black” concept of the holiday mentioned earlier, and the notion that the day after Thanksgiving marked the occasion when America’s stores finally turned a profit.

Real History

The Black Friday story stuck, and pretty soon the term’s darker roots in Philadelphia were largely forgotten.

Real History

Since then, the one-day sales bonanza has morphed into a four-day event, and spawned other “retail holidays” such as Small Business Saturday/Sunday and Cyber Monday.

Real History

Stores started opening earlier and earlier on that Friday, and now the most dedicated shoppers can head out right after their Thanksgiving meal.

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