The term “Black Friday” comes from the 1950s in Philadelphia. The police called it that because people and tourists would swarm into the city for a football game.

After a few years, business owners and salesmen wanted to give it a more appealing name to get more customers. For a period of time in Philadelphia it was called “Big Friday”. Calling it Black Friday didn’t become popular nationwide until the ’80s. They called it this to signify a positive change in retail sales, and also because it’s one of the biggest shopping days in the U.S.

Black Friday has been joined by Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. 

Black Friday is for retail shopping, Saturday is for supporting local businesses, and Monday is for shopping online.

Cyber Monday was created in 2005. Retailers made it to give a name to the increase of people shopping the Monday after Thanksgiving. They were also trying to start a trend to get more people to shop online. They did, and Cyber Monday was born. 

Small Business Saturday started on November 27, 2010, when American Express launched a campaign to help bring light to small businesses. It was also to encourage people to shop in their community for the holiday season. It became official in 2011 when state officials endorsed it, and then even Barack Obama. In 2012 American Express spent 5.5 billion USD on helping small businesses, furthering their campaign. In 2013 it became more widely known, but it wasn’t super popular until 2015. In 2015 about 95 million people participated.