{"id":6681,"date":"2021-11-24T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T06:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=84172"},"modified":"2021-11-24T07:19:13","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T06:19:13","slug":"why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is the shopping day after Thanksgiving called \u2018Black Friday\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Jonny Wilkes\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 24 November 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Black Friday has been adopted as the unofficial opening to the Christmas shopping period. It all began in the United States as a day of \u2018doorbuster\u2019 sales the day after Thanksgiving<\/a> but increasingly, Britain is getting into the swing of things \u2013 sometimes literally, as brawls and all-out fights are quite common among scrapping shoppers.<\/p>\n

A brief history of shopping<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Retailers love the day of discounts as billions are spent within a matter of hours, but there is one organisation for whom the day brings nothing but despair: the police.<\/p>\n
In 1966, the Philadelphia Police Department grew so frustrated by the congested streets, traffic jams and regular tussles that, it\u2019s believed, they coined the name \u2018Black Friday\u2019 in the hope of dissuading people from heading to the shops. It completely failed, but the name stuck.<\/p>\n
Understandably, retailers weren\u2019t keen on the name \u2013 it had strong associations with the Great Depression<\/a> of the 1930s, signalled by Black Thursday \u2013 so they tried to reinvent the image of the Black Friday frenzy. The \u2018black\u2019, it was argued, referred to the ledgers used by retailers. For the majority of the year, shops would be \u2018in the red\u2019 (losing money) but Black Friday indicated the moment when most retailers would start making a profit, or going \u2018in the black\u2019.<\/p>\n
What and when is America\u2019s National\u00a0Day of Mourning?<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
So that is how Black Friday got its name. There is no evidence to the regularly espoused theory that it went back to a 19th century tradition when slave owners would sell their weak or elderly slaves at low prices. Fortunately, that story is purely apocryphal.<\/p>\n
This article was taken from BBC History Revealed magazine<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n
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By Jonny Wilkes Published: Wednesday, 24 November 2021 at 12:00 am Black Friday has been adopted as the unofficial opening to the Christmas shopping period. It all began in the United States as a day of \u2018doorbuster\u2019 sales the day after Thanksgiving but increasingly, Britain is getting into the swing of things \u2013 sometimes literally, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":6682,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2021\/11\/why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday-scaled.jpg",2560,1598,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2021\/11\/why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2021\/11\/why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday-300x187.jpg",300,187,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2021\/11\/why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday-768x480.jpg",768,480,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2021\/11\/why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday-1024x639.jpg",800,499,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2021\/11\/why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday-1536x959.jpg",1536,959,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2021\/11\/why-is-the-shopping-day-after-thanksgiving-called-black-friday-2048x1279.jpg",2048,1279,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Jonny Wilkes Published: Wednesday, 24 November 2021 at 12:00 am Black Friday has been adopted as the unofficial opening to the Christmas shopping period. It all began in the United States as a day of \u2018doorbuster\u2019 sales the day after Thanksgiving but increasingly, Britain is getting into the swing of things \u2013 sometimes literally,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/6681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}