The Dark History of Black Friday

In retail, Black Friday is an integral part of the marketing strategy of stores around the world and is associated with the positive - substantial discounts on prices. But this marketing method of attracting customers has dark historical roots, which was associated with negativity in its origins.

The first recorded use of the term "Black Friday" was applied not to holiday shopping after Thanksgiving (November 25, USA), but to the financial crisis — the American gold market crash on September 24, 1869 — it was Friday. 

Earlier, two notorious Wall Street financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, conspired to buy up all the US national gold reserves, hoping to thereby raise the price of gold in order to sell it at a substantial profit. On the Friday after the fourth Thursday in November 1869, the conspiracy broke, leaving the U.S. stock market in free-fall and bankruptcy in everything from Wall Street financial sharks to farmers. 

Some who benefited from this financial crisis were retailers. They made significant discounts on goods, which attracted buyers who bought everything that came across on store shelves. The merchants' proceeds were so large that they covered the devaluation of the money. 

Then the traders kept accounting on paper: they wrote down losses in red and profits in black. Summing up the trading after Thanksgiving, all merchants' items were painted black - this is how the term and the phenomenon of "Black Friday" appeared, which as a marketing gimmick eventually spread around the world.