The failed attempt to corner United Copper was associated with the Panic of 1907.
In October 1907, speculators F. Augustus Heinze and Charles W. Morse tried to control United Copper's stock. The scheme failed, and depositors rushed to withdraw money from banks connected to the speculators. The panic spread when the Knickerbocker Trust Company, then New York's third-largest trust, suspended operations.
J. Pierpont Morgan organized private support for threatened institutions and helped stabilize the banking system. His intervention was especially important because the United States did not yet have a central bank. The crisis demonstrated the weakness of relying on private financiers during a systemic emergency.
The Panic of 1907 helped build political support for the Federal Reserve System. Congress created the National Monetary Commission, and the Federal Reserve Act followed in 1913. The episode is sometimes called the Knickerbocker Crisis, but that name describes its central trust-company failure rather than the broader panic.