The 1869 U.S. gold-market panic that disrupted the stock market was nicknamed Black Friday.
On September 24, 1869, the price of gold collapsed after the U.S. government sold gold into a market that speculators had tried to control. Financier Jay Gould and his associate James Fisk had accumulated gold and sought to push its price higher, believing they could profit if the government stayed out of the market.
President Ulysses S. Grant and Treasury Secretary George S. Boutwell eventually ordered a large gold sale. The intervention broke the attempted corner. Gold prices plunged, speculators suffered heavy losses, and the panic spread into the stock market. The event damaged confidence even though it did not cause the same kind of prolonged economic collapse as 1929.
Black Friday is easy to confuse with later stock-market nicknames. Black Monday refers especially to 1987, while Black Thursday and Black Tuesday are associated with the 1929 Wall Street crash. The 1869 episode centered first on gold, not on a single stock exchange trading session.