How did we get the term " Black Friday " for the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S.?

 

A:

Current U.S. usage of the term "Black Friday" ties the year's biggest shopping day into retailer profits. Many retailers make almost half of their yearly revenues in the period between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas. Black Friday has come to define the day after Thanksgiving as the day that retailers are most "in the black" financially.

But apparently use of the term Black Friday started with the Philadelphia Police Department back in 1966. They used "Black Friday" as a negative term, and hoped it would catch on and discourage people from shopping on that day. The day after Thanksgiving had already become the traditional day that many people began their Christmas shopping.

And Philadelphia police already thoroughly hated the shopping day tradition for its massive traffic snarls, hordes of shoplifters, and huge, unruly crowds. By the mid 1970s, the term Black Friday had made its way around much of the country but was still used as a negative term.

Later, retailers and marketers spun the term around into a more positive light. Since the term wouldn't seem to fade away, those who made much of their living from the frenzied shopping day following Thanksgiving needed to put it in a more positive light to encourage shoppers to spend.

After many years of spinning like a top, the term Black Friday has become firmly tied to the notion that retailers go into the black ink on the Friday after Thanksgiving. But the violence, injuries, and fatalities that accompany Black Friday sales deals in recent years continue to give the term a dark undertone that shows no signs of fading away.

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