Origin of Black Friday

Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year. Fresh from the Thanksgiving celebrations, shoppers throng the stores for best bargains of the year. Many stores like Macy’s, Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Gap etc. see huge lines of shoppers from the wee hours of the morning.Black Friday is an official term given to the day after Thanksgiving and it officially kit starts the Christmas shopping season in USA. Shopping malls, stores and almost all shopping venues give great discounts and offers to tap the enthusiasm of shoppers.The tradition of this day goes back to the year 1924, when after Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the popular New York City store held a big sale. The sale became so popular that soon, other stores also started having huge sales on the day. In fact, President Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day to a week earlier to give boost to the economy after the great depression of 1929.But this day didn’t get its present title for many coming decades and up until 1966, the day was simply known as “After Thanksgiving Sales”.It got this name in 1966 by Police Department of Philadelphia. The rush of hurried shoppers caused a number of car crashes and road rage incidents on this day. All this increased the stress on poor Policemen and they started calling it, the ‘Black Friday.’This term got a whole new meaning few years later, when it was connected to the financial aspect of the day. In accounts bookkeeping, profits are shown in Black color, while loss is indicated in Red. Since, this day brings a lot of profit for the retailers; they started calling it Black Friday.Whoever came up with the term, one thing is for sure that this day has become a cultural holiday for Americans. People wait for this day the entire year and some of them have even created social groups to go shopping together. The day also sets the right tone for the coming Christmas season.