#FactFriday - Where does “Black Friday” come from?

Now that we’re done with Thanksgiving, let the Christmas season begin!  

Here we are already in 2021 at the busiest shopping day of the year “Black Friday”. Full of miraculous deals, fresh new items for the season, and you and your fellow man elbow to elbow basking in retail delight.

But how did the Friday after Thanksgiving become known as “Black Friday”?

In the 1950 the term “Black Friday” was coined by the Journal, Factory Management and Maintenance,  in reference to the day after Thanksgiving as it was common practice for workers to call in sick in order to have a 4 day weekend.

The term reemerges in the 1960’s Philadelphia where it was used by the local police department to describe the heavy vehicle and foot traffic that occurred on the Friday after Thanksgiving, being the official start of the holiday shopping season.  By the 1970’s the term “Black Friday” spread to other major metropolitan police departments to describe the heavy shopper traffic on this day.

In the 1980’s is where we see the phrase move into its more positive interpretation.  Because the Friday after Thanksgiving is the busiest of the holiday season retailers in the 80’s started to use “Black Friday” because their profits were “in the black”.  Meaning retailers were not showing losses, or “in the red”.   And that is how the “Black Friday” as we know it has come to be.

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