Black Friday refers to the day immediately following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Friday in November), which marks the traditional kickoff of the holiday Christmas shopping season. It is widely known for massive retail discounts, early-morning doorbuster sales, and heavy shopping traffic.
In broader usage, “Black Friday” is also used historically to describe any Friday on which a major national calamity, stock market crash, or financial panic occurred.
Origin: From Traffic Nightmare to Retail Profits
The term Black Friday did not start as a sales campaign, nor did it originally refer to retail accounting. Its evolution traces through financial panics, municipal chaos, and eventually a clever public relations pivot.
19th-Century Financial Panic – Jay Gould and James Fisk Gold Buy-Up
In the 1800s, adding “Black” to a day of the week signified a sudden disaster or market crash. The most famous American “Black Friday” occurred on September 24, 1869, when financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the U.S. gold market, triggering a national financial panic when the market collapsed.
British Financial Panics (1745 & 1866)
The habit of attaching “Black” to a Friday during a disaster was well established in Britain long before it crossed the Atlantic:
- December 6, 1745: When the Jacobite army under Charles Edward Stuart (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”) reached Derby, a widespread banking panic hit London as citizens rushed the Bank of England to withdraw gold, earning the day the title Black Friday.
- May 11, 1866: The catastrophic collapse of the major London discount bank Overend, Gurney and Company triggered a massive panic across the British financial sector that became known throughout the Empire as Black Friday.
The Philadelphia Police Slang (1950s)
The specific phrase for the day after Thanksgiving was coined in the 1950s by police officers in Philadelphia. The city was overwhelmed by massive traffic jams, crowded sidewalks, and shoplifting as suburban shoppers and tourists flooded downtown ahead of the annual Army-Navy football game. Cops dubbed the chaotic, grueling workday “Black Friday.”
By 1961, local merchants hated the negative connotation and attempted to rename the shopping holiday “Big Friday,” but the public preferred the darker, catchier name.
The “In the Black” Rebrand (1980s)
As the term spread across the United States in the late 1970s and 1980s, retailers reframed the phrase using accounting terminology. In traditional bookkeeping, financial losses were recorded in red ink (“in the red”) while profits were recorded in black ink (“in the black”).
Stores began marketing “Black Friday” as the pivotal day of the year when high holiday shopping volume finally pushed businesses out of the red and into profitable black ink for the year.
Religious Uses of “Black Friday”: Long before “Black Friday” became associated with retail sales or financial panics, similar terms were used in Christian traditions across Europe to refer to Good Friday (the Friday preceding Easter):
• Schwarzer Freitag (“Black Friday”): In parts of historical Germany, Good Friday was occasionally called Schwarzer Freitag in reference to the black liturgical vestments worn during services to mark mourning and penance.
• Long Friday: In Anglo-Saxon England (and still used in modern Scandinavian languages like Swedish Långfredagen), Good Friday was called “Long Friday” due to the length of the church services and strict day-long fasts.
• Passion Friday: Another traditional name used to emphasize the trial and crucifixion during Holy Week. Note: Despite sharing a name, these religious traditions have no historical connection to the post-Thanksgiving shopping holiday.