Carter Scott ‘26, Entertainment Editor
Every year, Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This is a day where families compete in stores and fight for reduced prices; however, instead of the discounts and markdowns we associate current Black Friday with, the term once had a much darker meaning.
The first recorded application of the term was used during the crash of the U.S. gold market on Sept. 24, 1869. On that day, two notorious Wall Street financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, worked together to purchase as much of the nation’s gold as they possibly could. Their idea was to drive up the price of the gold that they bought and eventually sell it for astonishing profits. As their plan unraveled, the stock market was sent into a free-fall and bankrupted everyone from Wall Street Titans to farmers.
In the 1950s, around eight decades after the term was first used, police in the city of Philadelphia coined the term to describe the chaos that was brought upon by shoppers and tourists right after Thanksgiving in preparation for the Army-Navy Football game that was held on that following Saturday every year. The cops were not able to take the day off and even had to work extra-long shifts in an attempt to deal with the crowds and traffic. Additionally, shoplifters took advantage of the busy stores leading to a drastic increase in crime rates.
As time passed, the term “Black Friday” had caught on in Philadelphia. This was followed by businesses unsuccessfully trying to remove the negative connotations that were associated with the holiday by calling it “Big Friday” instead. The term did not stick around until, eventually, in the late 1980s, it resurfaced and was successfully rebranded by companies. This led to corporations gaining profits due to massive amounts of shopping for the upcoming holiday season.
The crazy Black Friday stampedes that you might imagine when you think of the holiday started in 2008, the year of the Great Recession. The severe economic crisis led to a shift in consumer behavior and spending, extreme price sensitivity, and a huge focus on sales and discounts. The panic and craze that came with the sudden change in the market led to consumers wanting to get their hands on as many products as they could, as fast as they could. During the same year as the recession, the first stampede related fatality was reported. In an article by The New York Times it said, “A Walmart employee on Long Island was trampled to death when more than 2,000 enthusiastic gift-grabbers busted through the store’s front door and could not be contained.”
As of 2025, the stampedes have disappeared and the holiday has definitely calmed down. This is likely due to the increase in online shopping, minimal discounts, the increase in the length of the holiday, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a shift in consumer behavior and awareness. The origins of Black Friday run deep with economics and hostility, but now it is a holiday for comfortable shopping whether it be online or in-person.
Lyon Life 