From Traffic Jams to Turnaround: The Real Story of 'Black Friday'

1 day ago7 min read5 comments

While the modern myth of Black Friday tells a tidy tale of retailers finally turning a profit and moving 'into the black,' the holiday's true origins are rooted in urban chaos, not corporate accounting. The most credible account takes us to 1950s Philadelphia, where police officers coined the term out of sheer frustration.The annual Army-Navy football game, held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, brought a massive surge of tourists and shoppers into the city. The resulting gridlock and rampant shoplifting created a nightmare for the police force, who were forced to work extended, grueling shifts.They began referring to this dreaded day as 'Black Friday,' a name that perfectly captured its miserable and disruptive nature. Unhappy with this negative association, which also evoked memories of the 1869 gold market crash, retailers in the later 20th century engineered a brilliant rebrand.They promoted the now-ubiquitous 'in the black' narrative, reframing the day as a celebration of financial health and holiday cheer. This masterful public relations campaign successfully whitewashed the term's gritty past, transforming a day of civic strain into a global commercial phenomenon. The evolution of Black Friday—from a local complaint to an economic ritual spawning Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday—is a powerful lesson in how language and tradition can be reshaped to serve commerce, burying a more complex and human story beneath layers of retail-friendly folklore.

#Black Friday

#history

#etymology

#retail

#shopping

#consumerism

#featured

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