Day after Thanksgiving Day in the United States

What is Black Friday?

For the Americans, the day after Thanksgiving is colloquially referred to as ‘Black Friday’. Based on records, the usage of this term dates back on year 1961. It originated in Philadelphia, the largest city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania – where the city’s policemen used such term to describe the heavy traffic and crowds of shoppers seen outside on the Friday following Thanksgiving Day.

For the next several years, the term Black Friday continuously gained popularity. By the late 1980s, the name was then associated with the boost in retail sales in the United States. Black Friday is one of the most profitable days for the shops and stores and therefore on this day, many businesses proceed from being "in the red" to being "in the black" profit narrative. Being “in the red” means the business has negative earnings while being “in the black” indicates positive and better earnings. Considering all shopping activities on Black Friday, a spike in sales is highly expected in most retailers and businesses during its observance.

Day after Thanksgiving, the start of Christmas shopping

The Day after Thanksgiving has been unofficially linked as the beginning of Christmas shopping season in the United States. This is primarily the reason why a change was made on the celebratory date for Thanksgiving. To lengthen the Christmas holiday shopping, Thanksgiving was moved from the last Thursday of November to the fourth Thursday of November. This took place on year 1939, during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time – though not all states have observed the change. It was only in 1941, as it was declared as a federal holiday, that all states have finally celebrated it on the same day – the fourth Thursday of November. Currently, the Day after Thanksgiving is recognized as one of the busiest shopping days in the country.