The 1907 US banking panic was called the Panic of 1907, a severe financial crisis that helped inspire the creation of the Federal Reserve System.
The panic began after a failed attempt to corner the stock of United Copper Company. Depositors then withdrew funds from banks and trust companies connected to the speculators, and fear spread through New York’s financial system.
J. P. Morgan organized private support for threatened institutions and helped coordinate emergency lending. The episode demonstrated how dependent the United States was on individual financiers because the country had no central bank capable of acting as a lender of last resort.
Congress later established the National Monetary Commission, whose work contributed to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The event is sometimes confused with the Panic of 1893, another major US banking and railroad crisis.