A Brief History of Black Friday
Avid shoppers look forward to Black Friday with the same enthusiasm lifelong hunters bring to the first day of deer season. They start making their plans weeks before the big day, poring through online circulars, making a shopping list and mapping out the best strategy. Whether they brave the crowds on their own or work as a team, smart shoppers know that there are bargains to be had on what has become the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season.
The day after Thanksgiving has become so important that many businesses and government agencies give their workers an extra day off, extending the holiday break from a single day to four. That extra day off does not apply to those in the retail industry, of course. Retail workers put in long hours, starting on Thanksgiving night and extending long into the next night.
Even the most experienced Black Friday shopper may not know the full history of this unofficial holiday, or even where it gets its name. The name "Black Friday" dates back to the old days, when store ledgers were kept not in computers but in paper books. Back then, accountants used red ink to signify losses and black ink to represent gains. Since the holiday season plays such an important role in the profitability of retail businesses, the day after Thanksgiving was often the day the ink in the ledger switched from red to black.
Black Friday is not the busiest day of the holiday shopping season; that honor usually goes to the Saturday before Christmas. Even so, the day after Thanksgiving has signaled the start of the holiday shopping season for decades. Historians often cite 1924 as the unofficial start of the modern Black Friday phenomenon. It was that year that Macy's began its annual Thanksgiving parade tradition. The iconic retailer opened its doors early the next day and invited shoppers to get a head start on their Christmas shopping. The rest, as they say, is history.
Author: FindMeCoupons
August 17, 2021, 22:46
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