The Original Black Friday Was All About Gold

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Fist-Fights. Flat-Screens. And Frenzy. These are the words we associate with Black Friday — a retail bonanza that has crept into the calendars of consumers well beyond the United States. In 2020, notwithstanding the potential setbacks associated with COVID19, sales reached a new record with American consumers spending $9 billion according to Adobe Analytics data. This is an increase of 21.6% from the $7.4 billion in 2019. For context, it means that consumers this year spent $6.3 million per minute. And these are only the online sales of Black Friday.

Popularly seen as an integral part of Thanksgiving traditions, much has been said about the origin of the name ‘Black Friday’. Most famously, the name is said to be linked to retailers who, after a year of operating in loss or ‘in the red’, begin earning a profit or trading in the ‘black’. Another origin story involves the sale of discounted slaves in the American South the day after Thanksgiving. The most probable explanation, however, comes from the term’s use by the Philadelphia police department who described the horrendous post-Thanksgiving traffic on the streets as ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Black Saturday’.

But the first use of ‘Black Friday’ referred to a different event altogether — the financial panic caused by an attempt to corner the gold market in 1869.

Jay Gould and Jim Fisk were a pair of robber barons who have their place in history amongst the more infamous names of Morgan, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and Rockefeller — 19th century American businessmen who were unscrupulous in expanding their wealth. The two men could not have been more different. Fisk was a former circus roustabout who charmed politicians and women alike, installed his mistress in a Manhattan brownstone, acquired a steamship line declaring himself admiral and famously stated “As to the World, the Flesh and the Devil, I’m on good terms with all three”. He also called himself ‘Diamond Jim’ and was described by a fellow stockbroker as “bounding into the Wall Street circus like a star-acrobat, fresh, exuberant… and turning double somersaults apparently as much for his own amusement as for that of a large circle of spectators.”

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he two men could not have been more different. Fisk was a former circus roustabout who charmed politicians and women alike, installed his mistress in a Manhattan brownstone, acquired a steamship line declaring himself admiral and famously stated “As to the World, the Flesh and the Devil, I’m on good terms with all three”. He also called himself ‘Diamond Jim’ and was described by a fellow stockbroker as “bounding into the Wall Street circus like a star-acrobat, fresh, exuberant… and turning double somersaults apparently as much for his own amusement as for that of a large circle of spectators.”

bounding into the Wall Street circus like a star-acrobat, fresh, exuberant…