Black Friday Has an Interesting Beginning

The day after Thanksgiving, which this year is November 27th, is the biggest shopping day of the year and has been since 2001, according to BBC News. Up until that day, it was the Saturday before Christmas that held that title, according to bbc.com. For over fifty years years, people across the country set out early in the morning to go find the best deals at their favorite stores.

A poll done with Arrowhead students showed that 17 out of 25, or 68%, of the students said they would be shopping on Black Friday.

According to various sources such as CNN and BBC news, the origin of the name Black Friday is a mystery, even to the students of Arrowhead High School.

“I’m actually not quite sure what the origin of Black Friday is. I think it has something to do with the stock market crash, but I know that there’s a lot of different beliefs as to what it’s origin truly is,” says Sarah Smith, a senior at Arrowhead High School.

According to bbc.com, Black Friday originally began being used in the 1800s to refer to stock market crashes. On September 24th, 1869, Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the golf market on the New York Stock Exchange.  When the government caught on to their plan, they intervened by correcting the distortion by flooding the market with gold. Thus, the price of gold plummeted greatly and people lost fortunes.

According to snopes.com, the term Black Friday was coined in the 1960s to mark the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season. Black refers to stores moving from the red to the black, back when accounting records were kept by hand, and red ink indicated a loss, and black a profit.

According to ccn.com, Black Friday was coined as a term in the 1960’s by Philadelphia policemen, who used the term to describe the hoards of shoppers who entered the city the day after Thanksgiving for deals–creating utter chaos and causing smog because of the pollution they brought into the city.

This year, according to dealnews.com, a popular trend of stores is to stay open until midnight or 1am on Thanksgiving, and then re-open with doorbusters around 6am on Friday.

According to Walmart’s website, Walmart’s deals will be begin at 5 am Black Friday.  However, following the tragic death of a customer during Black Friday, Walmart will stay open for 24 hours in order to ease the crowd lines and tension leading up to 5 am.

USA Today reported that Walmart decided to stay open from 6pm Thursday night through Friday evening. Many stores are following in this trend, opening before the clock even strikes midnight on black Friday. Retailers are beginning to call this day, “Grey Thursday” instead of Thanksgiving in an attempt to create yet another day focused on shopping.

Following the result of higher unemployment rates, pcworld.com reports that customers may be more set on getting those Black Friday deals than ever before.

“We’re going to make it easier when you get to the store to find what you want and hopefully get through it a little quicker,” Walmart U.S. CEO Greg Foran told USA Today.

“Seeing all of the 6 am shoppers coming in to get their coffee before heading back out to shop made me realize how popular pulling an all night on Black Friday is. It’s even worse when you have to work Black Friday through the night,” says Arrowhead senior Sarah Smith.

Livescience.com reported that last year on Black Friday, 212 million shoppers visited stores. The average consumer spent about $365.00, which is the highest average to date.

In total, last year Black Friday generated an estimated $45 billion in sales, according to the National Retail Foundation.

“I am looking forward to Black Friday. I wake up early every year to go shopping for amazing deals at my favorite stores. It’s a part of the holiday season that’s a must,” says AHS senior Mia Rocco.