“Black Friday” didn’t always refer to a shopping bonanza – West Central Tribune

Today, most people associate the term “Black Friday” with the retail bonanza of heavily discounted items, often accompanied by long lines and hordes of eager shoppers.

With business hours extending into Thanksgiving holiday hours and deals being posted well in advance of the holiday, Black Friday has become a global shopping phenomenon that extends well beyond the Friday after Thanksgiving . Last year, more than 76 million shoppers visited stores in person, while consumers spent $9.8 billion during Black Friday online sales, according to a November 29, 2023 Forbes article.

2023 also saw the start of the first-ever Black Friday football match broadcast on Amazon’s streaming platform, giving the global shopping site even more exposure to its own deals. The Minnesota Turkeys will make an appearance at the Black Friday football game.

The shopping frenzy doesn’t stop on Friday either; On Cyber ​​Monday, consumers spent $12.4 billion, according to the Forbes article.

In Willmar, the West Acres Mall opens on Black Friday. Black Friday sales are already being promoted on retailer websites. Other Willmar retailers – Kohls, Target, Walmart, Menards and Dunham’s Sports as well as many smaller retailers will all be open on Black Friday.

With the Thanksgiving holiday arriving later in November, the 2024 shopping season is down five days from 2023, but 36% of Americans told YouGov they plan to shop on Black Friday.

Whether you’re an avid Black Friday shopper or someone who avoids stores on that day like you would a belligerent uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, the day hasn’t always been defined by discount shopping.

Although the first recorded use of the term “Black Friday” was associated with money, it was linked to the crash of the US gold market rather than a price well below the ticket price for a television on big screen.

In 1869, two Wall Street financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, hatched a plan to purchase huge quantities of gold (which was still the official currency of international trade, but the United States used “greenbacks”). » supported by the government, which created competition). then turn around and sell it for huge profits.

However, the plot was discovered. President Ulysses S. Grant (whose brother-in-law had aided Gould and Fisk in their plot) ordered his Treasury Secretary to “flood the market,” which he did by selling $4 million in or the next day.

The result was dramatic: on Friday, September 24, 1869, the stock market collapsed, bankrupting barons and farmers, according to a History Channel article from November 17, 2023, thus becoming the first “Black Friday” of the recorded history. The ripple effects of that Black Friday were felt for decades, although Gould and Fisk appear to have emerged relatively unscathed from the scandal.

Fast forward several decades to Philadelphia in the 1950s and 1960s, when the police department began calling the day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday,” but in reference to the massive traffic jams and crowded sidewalks that resulted from the influx of shoppers as well as fans of the annual Army-Navy football game, according to a November 21, 2023 Huffington Post article.

Philadelphia retailers noted their increased profits that day and began calling the day “Black Friday”, although the term was not widely used beyond the city at that time, according to a article from Walden University.

The day must have begun to have some association with the act of shopping itself, because a 1951 issue of Factory Management and Maintenance contained an article that noted how many workers were “sick” the day after Thanksgiving; the author wrote: “The ‘Friday Disease after Thanksgiving’ is a disease second only to the bubonic plague in its effects. At least that’s the feeling of those who have to stop production when “Black Friday” arrives. “

In the 1960s, Philadelphia public relations executives attempted to undo the day’s negative connotation by calling it “Big Friday” and emphasizing the opportunity to get together with family while shopping. . The name did not stick.

But as the day became a major business event, calling it “Black Friday” made sense for businesses that operated in the red for part of the year before crossing the “black” line of profitability. In the 1980s, the shopping event the day after Thanksgiving became known nationally as Black Friday.

• “Black Friday” is the name of a 1940 American horror film starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi that involves a brain transplant with a dangerous side effect.
• Another film titled “Black Friday” was made in 2021 starring Devon Sawa and Ivana Baquero. The dark comedy features toy store employees battling parasite-infected shoppers during a busy shopping day.
• “Black Friday” was a song by American rock band Steely Dan in 1975 on their album “Katy Lied”; In 2023, British singer-songwriter Tom Odell also released a song called “Black Friday” on an album of the same name.
• According to blackfridaydeathcount.com, 17 people have died and 125 have been injured on Black Friday since 2010, when the site launched.

Danielle Teigen holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and management communications and a master’s degree in mass communications from North Dakota State University. She has worked for Forum Communications since May 2015.