The 1907 U.S. stock-market panic was halted after J. P. Morgan organized emergency private lending.
The panic began in October 1907 when a failed attempt to corner United Copper shares undermined confidence in trust companies. Depositors rushed to withdraw money, and the resulting bank runs spread through New York’s financial system. The Knickerbocker Trust Company, one of the largest trust companies, suspended operations on October 22.
J. P. Morgan gathered bankers in his library, examined institutions’ books and arranged loans and guarantees. His intervention helped stop the runs, but the crisis exposed the lack of a U.S. central bank. Congress later created the Federal Reserve System in 1913. The episode is sometimes confused with the Panic of 1893, another severe U.S. financial crisis, but the 1907 panic directly influenced America’s central-banking reform.