Shopping On Black Friday: The History Of A Holiday Phenomenon

Are you planning to shop at the shops on Black Friday? Log onto your preferred e-commerce portal, mobile app, or log on to the store.

Statisticians say that you have a good chance of doing both. The National Retail Federation estimates that 164 million people planned to shop online and in-store during Thanksgiving weekend 2018. Black Friday was the most visited shopping day. Three out of four Thanksgiving weekend shoppers were planning to shop in-store or online.

Black Friday is so popular. It’s the traditional kickoff for the holiday shopping season. It’s been the best day of the year to get great deals on the hottest toys, games and electronics. To see why, you don’t need to look further than our Black Friday shopping list. It includes the best Black Friday deals every year.

This holiday shopping event is great if you are on a budget. It’s odd that this holiday has become the most popular American shopping holiday. However, it’s not hard to find great deals on holiday gifts all year.

I have been curious about Black Friday’s origins and evolution for a long time, so I decided that I would investigate it myself. Here are the things I discovered.

Black Friday: History

It helps to understand the origins of Black Friday by placing it within the larger context of the holiday shopping season.

Origins Of The Holiday Shopping Season

Although holiday gift-giving has a long history, the holiday shopping season was created by 20th-century consumer culture.

Parade Of Sponsors

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a New York City tradition that takes place every Thanksgiving morning. This huge parade, which is watched by millions across the United States, was just one of many Thanksgiving weekend parades.

These parades were very popular in the mid-20th century and attracted large crowds in major cities as well as smaller towns. Many parades were sponsored by national or local retailers, just like the Macy’s Parade. That meant mostly department stores back in those days. It was simple: Department stores attached their names to the most prominent events on the pre holiday schedule, reminding their customers that they are open for business during the holiday shopping season. The official start of the holiday season was marked by Thanksgiving parades.

The Holiday Shopping Calendar

President Abraham Lincoln declared that Thanksgiving would be observed on the fourth Thursday of November 1863 when he issued the proclamation declaring the establishment of the holiday. It remained that way until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive decree to move Thanksgiving to November 4th. To make the change official, Congress passed legislation in 1941.

Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving one week earlier than expected. Congress did not agree to this change. Because of a strong coalition of retailers and other business interests asking them to.

The holiday shopping season was then synonymous with the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If Thanksgiving fell on November 30th, like it did in 1939 then that leaves only 24 holiday shopping days. Sometimes, there are fewer because many stores close on Sundays back then. This worried retailers and other retail-adjacent businesses who feared that holiday shoppers would shop less during a shorter season.

Their pitch to Roosevelt was more egalitarian. A longer holiday shopping period would be beneficial for the American economy. This sounds a bit dubious, but it is true that the United States was still trying to recover from the effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Regardless of its economic merits Roosevelt was sold. The official beginning of the holiday shopping season was marked by the Black Friday.

Who Was The First To Say “Black Friday”?

Black Friday was a term that existed before e-commerce, suburban malls and city-center department shops. According to The History Channel the first documented use of “Black Friday” was not related to holiday shopping.

Two unscrupulous oligarchs plotted to seize the American gold market in 1869. This was the foundation for the U.S. Dollar. The scheme was so complex and extensive that Ulysses S. Grant’s relatives were also implicated. On Friday, September 24, the plot unraveled, sending the U.S. financial markets reeling, ruining many investors and threatening the wider economy. This dark day became known as “Black Friday”.

It would be nearly a century before “Black Friday”, as it is now known, gained its current connotation. Long-held belief is that retailers adopted the name “Black Friday” to refer to the day following Thanksgiving because of the high volume of shopping, which invariably led to a boost in their financials for the year. Although it makes sense, the evidence doesn’t support this claim.

Black Friday Is Not Just About “Black”, It’s All About The Real Reason.

More provincial stories are more likely.

In 1950s Philadelphia, Thanksgiving weekend was a mob scene. Each year, the Army and Navy college football teams held a neutral-ground match in Philly to celebrate their fierce rivalry. In anticipation of the big game, thousands of people from the surrounding areas, as well as Army and Navy devotees further afield, flooded the city the day before. They used the opportunity to stockpile clothes, home goods and other giftable items in central Philly’s numerous department and retail stores.

Even in big cities like Philadelphia, the annual flood of shoppers and fans can clog streets and put a strain on local safety and health resources. Sarah Pruitt, The History Channel writes that city cops would have to work longer shifts in order to deal with increased traffic and crowds. Shoplifters could also profit from the chaos in stores to steal merchandise, increasing the law enforcement headache.”

Black Friday was not a good day to be a Philadelphia public servant in the mid-20th century. Locals began to call the chaotic day following Thanksgiving “Black Friday” by the 1960s. This was a rather unflattering name given the racial tensions and other issues of the time. Local politicians and business leaders tried to rebrand the day as “Big Friday,” which is a more positive name. It didn’t work. “Black Friday” was. The term “Black Friday” became a national catchphrase as retailers began to merge and grow.

Black Friday’s Evolution Through The Years

Black Friday isn’t a fixed holiday. Its evolution is a result of socioeconomic shifts that have profoundly changed the fabric of American society.

The Department Store Model: Holiday Shopping From The Mid-20th Century To The Early 20th Century

Holiday shopping was easy when Congress and Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving back one week. Brick-and-mortar shops clustered in cities centers, often in dense retail districts or large commercial avenues. In smaller cities and towns, there were small but vibrant shopping areas where residents could find the most essential holiday necessities.

People who lived in the country had to travel to cities or use mail-order catalogs to get specialty and luxury items. This was before the advent of online shopping. Sears & Roebuck catalog offered a wide range of non-perishable items, including prefabricated homes.

Department stores were the heart of big-city shopping areas. They were multistory, multi-story temples of commerce. You can find everything you need in a department store, including clothing, accessories, jewelry, home goods and appliances. You can shop for all your holiday needs in one day by visiting a single department store, as well as a few specialty shops.

Shoppers were more likely to go into town the day after Thanksgiving and shop at department stores. The majority of families were still together after the Thanksgiving feast and very few middle-class people were required to work.

The industry was very localized during the heyday of department stores in the early 20th Century. Alabama had at one time about 12 homegrown chain department stores. Every store had its own post-Thanksgiving promotions to entice customers out of turkey-induced sleep. Black Friday has always been a day of deals, even before its name was given.

Dispersion: Black Friday Goes Suburban

Millions of Americans fled central cities and their volatile neighborhoods in the years that followed World War II to seek greener pastures.

One unintended consequence of mass migration was the exodus of brick-and mortar retail from downtown shopping districts. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, the first enclosed, climate-controlled shopping center opened in Minneapolis in 1956. Over the next three decades hundreds of imitations sprung up all over the United States. Many were larger and more expensive than the original Southdale.

Large-format “big-box”, large-format stores such as Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and others grew in the 1980s and 1990s between super-regional and regional malls. This helped to create a more competitive suburban retail environment.

This was the time Black Friday really came to life. It was also when “Black Friday” became a popular term. In urban and suburban shopping centers, signs advertising Black Friday sales and opening hours at an alarming hour proliferated. Images of deal-hunters swarming parking lots and waiting in line until the early hours of the morning were commonplace by the dawn of the 21st Century. Every Black Friday was larger than the previous for years.

Black Friday Today: Holiday Shopping Goes Omnichannel

Today’s Black Friday is very different from the chaotic pilgrimages to city-centers that took place in the first two-thirds century. Although it’s still chaotic, the action isn’t concentrated in just a few commercial centers.

Omnichannel is the new retail environment. Online shopping is becoming more popular than ever. Shoppers will be just as likely to shop online from their phones or laptops, if not more, than they are to drive to the nearest big-box store or mall to browse deals in person. Some of the in-store traffic has disappeared thanks to “showrooming.” Shoppers visit Macy’s and Best Buy to see the products firsthand, and then they head home to search for better prices online.

Brick-and-mortar retail is in decline, threatening the middle and lower echelons of suburban shopping centers markets and posing a threat to the downtown department store model. CNBC reported in 2017 that Macy’s would close its century-old flagship department store in Portland and Minneapolis. This was a result of years of slow, painful decline.

Although innovative retailers are fighting showrooming by increasing their e-commerce capabilities, and adopting generous price matching policies, the die is already cast. Black Friday is now available when, where and how consumers want it. Black Friday deals are also available earlier than ever with Black Friday deals starting as early as Halloween. All this is great news for holiday shoppers who are looking for bargains.