The term "Black Friday" originally came from the 1950s in Philadelphia, where police used it to describe the chaotic and congested traffic on the Friday after Thanksgiving due to the influx of shoppers and people attending a major football game. Over time, retailers adopted the term to give it a positive spin, referring to the day when their accounts shifted from losses ("in the red") to profits ("in the black") as holiday shopping began. Thus, "Black Friday" signifies both the heavy shopper turnout and the profitable start of the holiday retail season.

Early Uses and Evolution

• The term was first linked to a 19th-century financial crisis involving a gold market crash in 1869, but this meaning is distinct from the contemporary shopping-related usage.

• In the 1950s and 1960s, Philadelphia's police and merchants coined and reshaped the term to describe the fraught atmosphere with shopping enthusiasm and financial gain.

• Retailers popularized the term nationwide by the 1980s, making it synonymous with the start of the Christmas shopping and significant sales events.

Hence, "Black Friday" reflects a transformation from a day marked by traffic trouble and workforce absences to a cornerstone of commercial profit and holiday shopping frenzy.