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The history of Black Friday
Every year on the last Friday of November, shoppers line up outside shops, waiting for them to open so they can catch the Black Friday offers. Black Friday started in America and began to spread to European countries. In Greece, the practice was first introduced in 2015 and since 2016, more and more companies started to implement it.
The “prehistory” of Black Friday
One myth had owners of large tracts of farmland back in the 1800s buying slaves at a discount on the day after Thanksgiving, a myth that seems to have no basis in fact. The first appearance of the term “Black Friday” occurred much later. What is striking is that in many areas of the US, public services and schools are closed even though it is not an official holiday. “Black Friday”, known to most as Black Friday, has established itself as the celebration of commerce and consumerism.
The first time the term Black Friday was used was on September 24, 1869 to describe one of the worst days of the American stock market. Two speculators were responsible for the financial scandal that caused dozens of companies to go bankrupt: Jay Gould and James Fisk, owners of the Errie railroad. The two Wall Street millionaires tried to buy as much gold as they could to drive up its price and then sell it for an astronomical sum. However, the plot was uncovered, causing the price of gold to drop by 30 points and the market to go bust. Thousands of investors were financially ruined and at least one committed suicide. The economy suffered enormous damage.
Since the 1980s, Black Friday has officially been the day of big deals in stores.Later on, the term was reused in a positive sense. In the USA, Black Friday is always the Friday after “Thanksgiving”. In the 19th century, stores held parades in the streets of big cities to mark the first day of the Christmas season's promotions.
At the end of the parades there was always a man dressed as Santa Claus. The ink In the early 1960s, spreadsheets and receipts were handwritten. Stores had two colors of ink to record the items. Red ink was used to mark days with a negative sales balance and black ink was used to mark days with a positive balance. The first sales day of the Christmas season, which had increased sales for shopkeepers, was marked in black and thus was called “Black Friday”. It indicated a rise in turnover.
According to another version, the term was used by Philadelphia police officers in the US to describe the congestion of cars and pedestrians caused by the Christmas season promotions. Due to the traffic there were more accidents on the streets and usually on that day police officers were working overtime to manage the situation. This made them unhappy. This use of the term dates back to at least 1961.
After twenty years the phrase became popular because it was associated with retail profits. In American slang, receipts went from “in the red” to “in the black.” Some thought of renaming it “Good Friday”.
Eventually, the term “Black Friday” was retained and around the end of the 1980s it was spread as a sign of success and profitability. It was a day of mutual interest between shopkeepers and consumers. One side profited because of the turnover and the other bought cheap. Black Friday marketing made black, «white».
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