Black Friday: A Little History

While holiday gift-giving is a centuries-old tradition, the holiday shopping season is not – it was defined by of all things, parades!  By the mid-20th-century parades were drawing large crowds and not just in large cities. Many parades were sponsored by local retailers (usually department stores), who by attaching their names to the parade, increased store visibility with holiday shoppers. Over time, Thanksgiving parades came to be seen as the unofficial start to the shopping season. In fact, Macy’s first parade on November 27, 1924 was advertised as a Christmas Parade with the arrival of Santa marking the official start to holiday shopping. (Note, the first few Macy parades included live animals from the Central Park Zoo, who were replaced with large balloon animals in 1927.)

Macy’s 1st Thanksgiving Parade 1924, Bettman Archive – Getty Images

But where does the term Black Friday come from?

Originally, the term was used to describe a financial crisis in 1869 when James Fish and Jay Gould worked together to buy up as much gold as possible ,to drive up the price and corner the market. However, their conspiracy unraveled on Friday, September 24, 1869, sending the stock market into a free-fall, ruining investors and tanking the economy. That day came to be known as “Black Friday.”

So if that’s where the term comes from, why is it associated with shopping? Well, we have to back up a bit.

President Lincoln designated the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving and, as noted above, that day came to be known as the start of the holiday shopping season. This was fine until 1939, when Thanksgiving fell on November 30, leaving only 24 shopping days (actually, a bit less as most stores weren’t open on Sundays). President Roosevelt gave in to pressure and moved Thanksgiving up a week to allow more time for shopping. (Remember, this was during the depression and a longer shopping season was seen as good for the economy.)  This move caused controversy and confusion, particularly because he made the declaration in October! Congress finally passed a law in 1941 making the fourth Thursday in November the official Thanksgiving holiday.

Franklin Thanksgiving, Bettman Archive – Getty Image

By the 1950s it was clear that many people were taking the Friday after Thanksgiving off work, giving themselves a four-day holiday and getting a head start on holiday shopping. Although the day after Thanksgiving isn’t a Federal holiday, many state and school employees were given the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers. This came to a head in Philadelphia where the annual Army / Navy college football game takes place on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Thousands of people flooded into the city to not only take in the game, but to shop. The combination of football fans and shoppers was a bad mix – city cops had to work extra-long shifts, deal with large crowds and traffic, and the headache of shoplifters who took advantage of the situation too. By the 1960s locals were calling the crazy day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday”, a name that stuck and spread.

Black Friday came into its own during the 1980s and 90s when large big-box stores like Walmart, Target and Best Buy advertised blowout sales. By the turn of the 21st century deal-hunters were camping out in parking lots and waiting in lines through the wee-hours of the morning to be the first to get bargains.  At times, some crowds have turned a bit violent with fist-fights breaking out.  There’s even a website called Black Friday Death Count!

Today Black Friday has to share space with Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday, but Thanksgiving is still seen marking the start of holiday shopping.

If shopping isn’t your thing, a group in the UK (Buy Nothing Day ), invites people to escape the “Shopocalypse” by engaging in anti-commercial activities, suggesting you stay at home with a good book or organize a free concert, anything as long as you don’t buy anything.

All of us at the Scott County Historical Society wish you and yours a warm and filling Thanksgiving Holiday.

(FYI: The museum is closed for Thanksgiving and Black Friday – we’re eating goodies and shopping!  The museum – and our museum store are open on Saturday.)

A Short History of Thanksgiving

Early Thanksgivings:

Setting aside time to express gratitude and feasting to celebrate harvests where both practices that predated European and English arrival in North America.  Similar practices are recorded as being part of life for more than one American Indian nation. Feasts of thanks were recorded by both the Spanish and French settlers who came to North America in the 16th century.

Thanksgiving card made by Patricia Donnelly of Cedar Lake Township for her her mother, 1950. SCHS Collections

Thanksgivings were also commonplace among the early British colonial settlers. The first settlement at Jamestown in 1610 routinely held thanksgiving feasts. In fact, it was written into their charter from the London Company that “the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned… in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.” Unlike modern Thanksgiving, these feasts did not take place on a particular day of the year. Instead, they were celebrated whenever a community thought recent events warranted a party.

The event that Americans commonly call the “First Thanksgiving” was celebrated by the Pilgrims in October 1621 after their first harvest in what they called the “new world”. This feast lasted three days. Attendee Edward Winslow described it thusly:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we retired our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days with whom we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty

Thanksgiving card listing beloved family members and friends, 1905. From the SCHS Collections

As feasts of thanksgiving were a relatively common cultural practice at the time, the Pilgrims’ feast with the Wampanoag was not identified as the first Thanksgiving until a booklet titled “Of Plymouth Plantation” was published in 1841. The booklet contained collected writings of the Plymouth colonial settlers. The editor, Alexander Young, pointed out the above passage as the original Thanksgiving in a footnote.

The United States:

Thanksgiving was a part of the national identity of the United States from its onset. During the revolutionary war, the Continental Congress declared one or more days of Thanksgiving each year. Rather then falling on an appointed day each year, these Thanksgivings were declared to honor individuals or events such as a battlefield victory. The proclamations were lengthy and wordy affairs, such as this December example:

It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these United States to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth Day of December next, for Solemn Thanksgiving and Praise: That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please God through the Merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole: To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty God, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, Independence and Peace: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth “in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.

After the end of the Revolutionary war, Thanksgivings continued be periodically declared. President John Adams proclaimed Thanksgivings in 1798 and 1799. Thomas Jefferson was a deist and a skeptic of the idea of divine intervention. Thanksgiving was at that time associated with giving thanks to God, not to other men, and because of this Jefferson did not declare any thanksgiving days during his presidency. James Madison renewed the tradition in 1814. Madison also declared the holiday twice in 1815; however, none of these were celebrated in conjunction with autumn or the harvest.

The Civil War

Thanksgiving as we know it came to life during the American Civil War. In 1863 Lincoln, in a bid for national unity, declared a national day of Thanksgiving, to be celebrated the final Thursday of November, 1863. Of this decision William Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state, wrote:

Thanksgiving menu from the Mill Pond Club, Shakopee, 1956. From the SCHS Collections

 In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom….It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving. 

Since the Civil war a Thanksgiving, in one form or another, has been celebrated annually in the United States. While traditions have varied from feasts to shooting matches, charitable works to football games, Thanksgiving continues to be a time when Americans gather with family and friends to be thankful for the good things that have happened that year.

At the Scott County Historical Society, we are thankful for the wonderful members, volunteers and donors who help us to keep our doors open each day. We are also thankful for the interest in history and community that drives visitors to stop in and attend events. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Learning To Do More With Less: Thanksgiving During the Great War

Thanksgiving is perhaps the most quintessentially American holiday. It offers us a time to gather with family and friends to reflect on things that we are thankful for and to feast on the year’s bounty. Typically, celebrated with tables full of as much food as they can hold: turkey, ham, gravy, potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, pies and cakes. However, in 1917 America was forced to face Thanksgiving in an entirely new way, as they found themselves part of the largest war yet fought, World War I. How would America celebrate with demand for food in Europe at an all-time high and millions of men away from home? The celebration would still occur, just with less.

Outside of physically joining the fight, there were few things more important one could do on the home front during the war than produce and conserve more food for export to Europe. It would’ve been nearly impossible to escape the propaganda that “food will win the war”, particularly in rural areas like Scott County. During his 1917 Thanksgiving Proclamation, President Wilson made clear that the United States was in a special position to help:

“We have been brought to one mind and purpose. A new vigor of common counsel and common action has been revealed in us. We should especially thank God that in such circumstances, in the midst of the greatest enterprise the spirits of men have ever entered upon, we have, if we but observe a reasonable and practicable economy, abundance with which to supply the needs of those associated with us as well as our own.”

         Every citizen was told they needed to do their part on the home front in three critical areas: increasing production, limiting consumption, and shifting eating habits. Increasing production meant farmers planting more wheat, over other staple crops, and every citizen growing their own small gardens and canning the produce to ease the burden on the commercial food markets which could then sell more directly to the government. Limiting consumption and shifting eating habits often went hand-in-hand as they required citizens to eat less than many had been used to and involved what were often known as “-less” days, where depending on the day of the week a family would have meatless or wheatless meals and instead substitute them for foods like corn, rice, oats, potatoes, fish, or chicken. The reason for using these other staples was that wheat was desperately needed in Europe and foods like corn and potatoes didn’t transport overseas well and most European mills weren’t equipped to process other grains like oats, on top of the fact that European tastes weren’t accustomed to the different grains. To aid in the effort the government, businesses, and newspapers offered an abundance of recipes and cooking-aids which enabled families to make wheatless or meatless foods or better use of left-overs and ingredients which many had never used.

                These conservation efforts had an impact on how the average American family celebrated Thanksgiving. Rather than a table filled to the brim with food, a sparser offering was the norm. For example, cranberries and cranberry sauce may have been noticeably absent from many tables as they required far too much sugar to prepare or pies and breads made with no flour or fat. The President and his family tried to set an example with their White House dinner: cream of oyster soup with slices of hot buttered toast, turkey with trimmings, garden vegetables (sans cranberries), and pumpkin pie.

Despite the conservation going on at home, a special effort was made so that the fighting men and women, most of whom were experiencing their first holiday away from family, received a full Thanksgiving meal. Whether training at camps throughout the nation, on a ship in the mid-Atlantic, or in the fields of France, they were to receive a full hot meal that could have been expected before the war. Efforts were taken to ensure they got the items that people at home were doing without, like cranberry sauce and ice cream. The meal had by the soldiers at Camp Dodge, Iowa serves as a good example of what the troops enjoyed:

Appetizer: Grapefruit Cocktail and Cream of Celery Soup with Croutons and Olives

Main Course: Roast Turkey, Chestnuts Dressing, Cranberry Sauce, Giblet Sauce, Baked Ham, Sweet Potatoes, Baked Potatoes, Green Peas and Fruit Salad

Dessert: Mince Pie, Ice Cream, and Cake

After Dinner: Cheese, Nuts, Candy, Coffee and Cider

According to the Jordan Independent, letters home indicated great satisfaction with the meals from the soldiers in service.

The Thanksgiving of 1917 was the only Thanksgiving which America had during World War I, as by the time it rolled around again in 1918, an armistice had been declared. November 11, 1918 saw the cessation of hostilities and the bringing of peace to a war-torn Europe. “Victory,” as General Pershing said, “was the Thanksgiving gift to the American Nation,” and that was something everyone could be thankful for.