Where Does ‘Black Friday’ Come From

For many of us Black Friday means a busy day of shopping and lot's of great deals.  I remember, and this was just a couple of years ago, seeing a large group of shoppers wearing Christmas hats, or dressed in matching Christmas sweaters.  Some shoppers would even hire a limo so they could be dropped off at the stores door and have plenty of room to store all their shopping bags.

The history of Black Friday, well the first recorded use of the term was not applied to holiday shopping, but to the crash of the U.S. gold market on September 24th 1869.  For the meaning of the post-Thanksgiving shopping day, well the story goes , after an entire year of operating at a loss, or in the red, stores would supposedly earn a profit, went into the black, because holiday shoppers would spend so much money on discounted merchandise.

Black Friday really became a thing in the late 1980's when stores all across the country started to get on board, and a huge shopping day was officially born.  Black Friday soon turned into a 4 day shopping event and spawned other shopping days like Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday.+

In 2020 we are going to see a very different Black Friday.  The coronavirus has changed our landscape this year, so much that retailers started their Black Friday deals online ahead of Black Friday.  But that said, there are still local merchants who are in need of your business, so go ahead and shop online, but remember our local businesses and give them some of your money because they need your support.

For more on Black Friday click on History.com