Which U.S. firm’s 1907 failure helped trigger the Panic of 1907?

The Knickerbocker Trust Company’s failure helped trigger the Panic of 1907.

Knickerbocker Trust, then one of New York’s largest trust companies, became central to the panic after its president, Charles T. Barney, was implicated in an attempted corner of United Copper stock. When the scheme failed in October 1907, depositors withdrew money from Knickerbocker. The company suspended operations on 22 October.

The suspension intensified public fear and spread withdrawals to other financial institutions. Because the United States had no central bank at the time, private financiers played an unusually important role in stopping the crisis. J. Pierpont Morgan organized emergency lending and helped coordinate support for solvent institutions.

The Panic of 1907 eventually encouraged political support for banking reform. The Aldrich–Vreeland Act of 1908 created emergency currency provisions, and the Federal Reserve System was established in 1913. Knickerbocker Trust is therefore a trigger of the panic, not the name of the entire crisis.