Quote Originally Posted by Karen View Post
I heard a story today on NPR - Black Friday was a term in the 1950s - when factory managers called it "black friday" because so many people called in "sick" that day, they compared it to the "black death" - a.k.a. the bubonic plague.
I never heard of that one and it looks like Wikipedia hasn't either. Maybe you should send it to them so they can update.

Out of curiosity, I did a search to see how many others showed up, and I only found reference to this "plague" in one article. It seems that someone in the very early 50's, published an article in Factory Management and Maintenance magazine on the subject of worker absenteeism, and the day after Thanksgiving was mentioned. The subject appeared to die off until the Philadelphia use of it kicked in, in the 60's.

So who knows??? All I know is that it's a day for me to stay home and do any shopping I might want to do, on line.

There were other meanings applied to BF also, one being that after the Civil War, that blacks were allowed to shop in retail establishments on Friday only, but of course that would have absolutely nothing to do with the current holiday shopping meaning. I'm certain that there's plenty more out there that nobody ever heard of too.