The Dark History Behind Black Friday Revealed

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The Dark History Behind Black Friday Revealed, This is how it all began

Although Black Friday is favoured as the best time to do festive shopping, the day does come with its historic faults. There is very little consensus on the meaning of Black Friday- which has become an integral part of many Thanksgiving celebrations- but they have been several theories which try to explain how and when the name was coined.

Black Friday, which is the day just after Thanksgiving started much earlier than people may think. The day after Thanksgiving has been the unofficial beginning of the Christmas season since the late 19th century when President Abraham Lincoln designated the Thanksgiving holiday as the last Thursday in November.  The day after Thanksgiving wasn’t called Black Friday then.

According to History, the first recorded use of the term ‘Black Friday’ actually referred to a stock market crash rather than a discounted festive season shopping experience.

The name was associated with September 24, 1869. Two ruthless Wall Street speculators, Jay Gould, and James Fisk created a boom-and-bust in gold prices. A stock market crash followed as prices fell 20%. The disruption in gold prices sent commodity prices plummeting 50%.  On that Friday the stock market went into free-fall and consequently bankrupting everyone from Wall Street barons to farmers.

Some link the term to the original Black Friday, which was the day on which slave owners in America would sell off the slaves who had the least value to them for low amounts of money.

Although there have been contrasting theories on how the name Black Friday came to be, what has come to be accepted as a logical explanation would be how black ink in a company’s accounting books often symbolise profit in contrast to red which resembles losses.

https://cy4ad5.c2.acecdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Black-Friday-Shoppers-in-nasty-scramble-for-products-from-a-store.jpg
Black Friday Shoppers in a nasty scramble for  Samsung plasma television screens in an electronics store. (Image credit Independent.co.uk)

Black Friday started in America on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, and it has spread across the globe like wildfire. It started off in the US as a marketing strategy to make money by focusing on volume sales and to move old stock by drastically reducing prices. Because of the ridiculous slashes in prices, customers worldwide have often slept outside stores to get as many products as possible while stocks last.

Like many things that have been distorted by time, there is little possibility of an objective conclusion. So rather hurry and horde as many things as you can before the Black Friday ends.

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