I thought it would be useful to start with a recent piece that gives us a lay of the land of Black Friday shopping. On November 24th, 2015, the Quincy Herald-Whig published an article titled “SCORE BIG SAVINGS; 9 TIPS TO HELP YOU MAXIMIZE YOUR BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING POWER”. This article gives an in-depth list of how to make the most of your black Friday.
The list of nine tips included looking at deals before and after black friday (like Cyber Monday), shopping online, using coupons, keeping your eyes peeled for gift cards or rewards, using your phone to find deals, signing up for loyalty programs, earning cash back, using credit card perks, and setting price alerts. A lot of these tips are still very useful in black Friday shopping, likely more than anyone would have anticipated. For example, I doubt any of us would have expected online shopping to be at the heart of present black Friday sales. Now, there is a lot less of an incentive to get up super early and be the first one in the store when you can access the deals online from the comfort of your own home. There is also something to be said about looking at sales the days before and after black Friday. As time goes on, sales become longer and longer, and there is always some kind of holiday deal going on in November and December. In addition to Cyber Monday, some businesses also now celebrate Small Business Saturday, a day where small businesses hold sales to encourage people to support the local economy. Even in the last 10 years, the way we navigate black Friday and holiday sales has changed, but just how much has it changed in the last century?
Black Friday shopping in 1996 was more like what you think of when you think of Black Friday. On November 29th, 1996, the Quincy Herald-Whig published an article recounting black Friday shoppers’ thoughts as they interviewed them throughout the day. One shopper said she planned to have all her shopping done for Christmas by breakfast. A store manager reported that all 13 of their registers were full of people lining up with their purchases at just 6:10 AM. In the local Walmart, lines of people took up entire aisles of merchandise. This scene of packed stores and early risers is what I traditionally imagine Black Friday to be like. Hundreds of people are waiting outside for stores to open so they can score a good deal on a wide variety of items. This was definitely a more intense shopping experience than it is now, but is the kind of traffic that helps boost businesses and local economies every year!
Heading further back in time, it’s more common for sales to be called holiday sales or after-Thanksgiving sales, rather than black Friday sales. The term “black Friday” originally began being used around the 1950s in Philadelphia to describe the mass shopping spree that happened the day after Thanksgiving. It was dubbed “black Friday” because of the headache that this day often causes law enforcement to work extra hours and deal with unruly customers. Others soon began to catch on and the term transitioned, slowly but surely, into the retail event we know today.
In 1959, the term black Friday hadn’t quite reached Quincy, so most ads still called it a holiday sale or a day-after-Thanksgiving sale. On November 26th, 1959, I found a couple of different holiday sales listed in the Quincy Herald-Whig. From Block and Kuhl Co., women’s winter coats were to be $28 during their after thanksgiving sale. Another store called Kresges was selling ‘holiday gift aprons’, ranging from $1-2, depending on the style. Even a local real estate company, Hermann and Rodemich, was offering Thanksgiving drive-buy sales on houses!
Thanksgiving and holiday sales in 1940 were fairly similar to 1959 sales. While they seemed to be slightly less common from what I could see, there will still be lots of stores taking advantage of the holiday season and the customers that come with it. One ad I found for an after thanksgiving sale was on November 24th, 1940. The ad was from a store called Halbach-Schroeder, and was paired with the line “still going strong!”. The contents of the sale were various types of apparel, including fur-trimmed coats, dresses, and something called ‘one-of-a-kind fashions’. These items were all discounted for around 30% off, and advertised as a “great fashion clearance”. Sadly, no pictures of the actual items were included in the ad, so the one-of-a-kind fashions will remain a mystery.
Our last ad is from November 30th, 1911, and was for a Thanksgiving week sale rather than a day-after-Thanksgiving sale. The advertisement was quite large on the page and was from Quincy Gas, Electric, and Heating Company. The ad also included more information than the other, more recent ads did, and included the line “BETTER ORDER ONE TODAY”. The product they were selling was not specifically stated, but it seemed to be a lightbulb, which they said would get 125 candle power of light on three feet of gas an hour. Despite being from over a hundred years ago, the advertisement also used some modern marketing techniques, telling customers to ‘BUY IT NOW’ while it’s on sale, creating an idea that they may be missing out if they don’t take advantage of this sale.
I found this quite an interesting topic to research, as advertisements are one of many resources you can find in the Community History Archives. They were quite fun to look at, but also very informative. Next time you’re doing research, I suggest you take a look at the ads in the paper. They might just help fill in some background information you were missing! Join me again next week to discover more of history’s hidden gems and timeless tales.
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