J. P. Morgan led the private rescue effort during the Panic of 1907.
The crisis began in October 1907 after an unsuccessful attempt to corner the stock of United Copper Company triggered runs on trust companies. The failure of the Knickerbocker Trust Company in New York intensified public fear and threatened wider withdrawals.
Morgan convened bankers in his library and used his influence, money, and institutional relationships to coordinate emergency loans and prevent several major financial institutions from collapsing. The United States had no central bank at the time, so the rescue depended heavily on private coordination.
The panic helped convince many American policymakers that the country needed a permanent lender of last resort. That process eventually produced the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Morgan did not act alone, but he was the central figure in the rescue. A common mix-up is confusing this episode with the 1929 crash, which occurred more than two decades later and involved a very different banking and economic environment.