The 1901 U.S. stock-market panic followed the Northern Pacific Railway share-price corner and is called the Panic of 1901.
A struggle for control of Northern Pacific pushed its shares sharply upward in May 1901. Investors and speculators who had sold the stock short found themselves unable to obtain enough shares, while the price rose to extraordinary levels. When the battle ended and market expectations shifted, prices collapsed and broader selling spread through Wall Street.
The panic exposed the dangers of concentrated control and speculative short selling. It also intensified the rivalry between financier J. P. Morgan and the group associated with E. H. Harriman. The two sides eventually reached an agreement involving Northern Securities, a holding company that later became the subject of a major antitrust case.
The Panic of 1901 is sometimes overshadowed by the Panic of 1907, which produced a wider banking crisis and helped inspire the creation of the Federal Reserve. They were separate events six years apart.