Which U.S. president was in office during the Panic of 1907, a major American stock-market crash?

Theodore Roosevelt was the U.S. president during the Panic of 1907, a major American financial crisis and stock-market crash.

The panic began after an unsuccessful attempt to corner the stock of United Copper Company. The failure spread through trust companies and banks, producing deposit withdrawals and a sharp loss of confidence. The New York Stock Exchange also suffered major declines, while credit became difficult to obtain.

Roosevelt was president from 1901 to 1909, so the crisis occurred during his second term. He did not personally provide the rescue that stabilized the system. That role was chiefly played by financier J. P. Morgan, who organized private support for threatened institutions.

The panic exposed weaknesses in the U.S. banking system and contributed to the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. A common mix-up is to credit the Federal Reserve with stopping the 1907 panic; the central bank did not yet exist.