As for knowing the true origin of the famous “Black Friday” and where its name comes from, opinions differ. It’s up to you to choose your version!
1. When was Black Friday born?
Beware of fake news. One thing is certain: the rumor, relayed on social networks, which suggests that the event would come from a large annual sale of slaves at knockdown prices, at the time of the slave trade, is false and completely false. The first recorded use of the expression Black Friday to refer to the last Friday in November dates from 1951, but slavery was abolished in the United States by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865, almost a century earlier.
Let's move on to the explanations that hold up historically. For some, the history of Black Friday dates back to the 1930s. Merchants then established this day of discount sales in order to revitalize the American economy after the Great Depression of 1929. For others, its concept appeared much earlier. late, in the 1960s, in Philadelphia, on the east coast.
Very quickly, Black Friday gave rise to scenes bordering on riots.
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Regardless, Black Friday was going to be a great success and quickly spread across the United States. At the end of the 1990s, this day of exceptional sales had become widespread throughout the country, but also elsewhere in America, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, before being exported to Europe at the start of the 21st century. .
2. But why this derogatory name?
There too, there is debate. According to some, nothing to do with the sales. When it appeared in the press in 1951, it was to designate the Friday between Thanksgiving (always the last Thursday in November) and the weekend that follows, a “black” day for bosses who see their employees being wear pales to make the bridge…
Others recall that at the beginning of the 20th century, when store accounting was still done by hand, the accounts were often written in red, given that they were most of the time in deficit. One exception, however: this famous Friday during which Americans rushed to the stores to get good deals. There, the sellers' accounts came out of the “red”, which allowed the accountants to finally enter the figures in black ink. Hence the term “black Friday”.
Last lead, the Philadelphia police. She would have started using the expression in the 1960s, to describe a day that was particularly difficult to manage, because it was punctuated by huge traffic jams and crowd movements, due to the significant discounts offered by traders, at the start of a long weekend, a few weeks before Christmas.
To escape the pejorative connotation of the event's name, in the 1970s, merchants tried to rename it “Big Friday” but the expression did not take hold. It was “Black Friday” that stuck.
