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The term "Black Friday" originated in Philadelphia, among police and bus and cab drivers and anyone else trying to deal with the shopping and traffic frenzy that happened in the early 1960s. Beside all the shopping, there was the Army-Navy football game, which used to take place on the Saturday after Gobble Day at Franklin Field.
The City Fathers up there in the City of Brotherly Love were alarmed at the negativity being connected to the merry sound of cash registers registering cash by the truckload, so they tried to float the names "Big Friday" and "Big Weekend" as substitutes. But those names did not, in fact, float.
The original, first, and most famous Black Friday occurred on September 24, 1869, when two financial wizards, Jay Gould and his partner James Fisk attempted to corner the market on the New York Gold Exchange. It turned out that Gould and Fisk had gained the confidence of President Ulysses S. Grant, who had about as much business being president as the man in the moon did. The economy of the United States, still recovering from the Civil War, went into a tailspin for years after this scandal.
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It's hard to think of Black Friday as a boon to business with that history behind the term, but for those of you heading to the malls today - and to the REAL malls of today, your keyboards - here's a reminder that tomorrow is Small Business Saturday. Why not spend a little money at that local craft store or yarn shop or ma-and-pa photo developing place instead of helping Wally World crush the competition?
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