Black Friday was the 1869 U.S. market panic that followed Jay Gould and James Fisk’s attempt to corner the gold market.
Gould and Fisk sought to drive up the price of gold by buying heavily while trying to prevent the U.S. government from selling its own gold. They cultivated political connections, including an association with President Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, hoping the Treasury would not intervene.
The plan unraveled when the Treasury began selling gold on September 24, 1869. The price fell sharply, ruining many speculators and disrupting financial markets. Gould escaped total financial ruin, while Fisk also survived the immediate collapse, though the episode damaged public confidence and produced legal and political controversy.
This Black Friday predates the better-known 1929 and 1987 stock-market crashes. It was principally a gold-market panic rather than a broad, modern stock-index collapse, but its market consequences made it a landmark in U.S. financial history.