Black Friday is either first used in November 1951 as a description of factory workers taking sick days, or in 1966 in Philadelphia as another describe the rush of people coming into the city for army/Navy football games.

The term ‘black’ for a bad market day was already established by sometime in the late 19th century, and the US had a historic ‘Black Monday’ and ‘Black Tuesday’ in 1929 which have been recognized as the start of the Great Depression, where the Dow Jones lost almost 25% of it’s value over the course of both days. In a story about the Black Friday incident in the US in 1948, the term was associated with a widespread “sickness” that appeared to

1. befall factory workers on the day after Thanksgiving. It was recommended that factory managers offer the day as an extra holiday as a ‘gap negotiation chip’ with employees, since the day was already one of relatively little production. The author used the term again in a February 1952 issue when mentioning that one company did indeed add ‘Black Friday’ to their paid holidays.

2. Why is Black Friday growing in popularity in Philadelphia? Is “Late Black Saturday” still in use today? Is Thanksgiving observed the day after Thanksgiving? From a marketing angle, a few decades later, after some not-so-successful campaigning to change it to ‘Big Friday’, retailers finally accepted the name, and changed the meaning that they went from ‘in the red’ to ‘in the black’ because of the revenue earned that particular day.

Which is more innocent if the name “Critical” only has negative intentions? Why is the negative slant used in Advertising as a media industry rather than anything else?

Snopes has a great rundown of quotes from various sources.