Black Friday / Gold Corner
On September 24, 1869, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk attempted to corner the US gold market. They had spent months building positions while cultivating political access in the Grant administration. Gold climbed from around $132 to $162 per hundred in a matter of days. When President Grant ordered the Treasury to sell $4M in gold reserves, the price collapsed roughly 18 percent inside minutes. Brokers went bankrupt, the NYSE suspended trading, and the panic spread into commodity and equity markets for weeks.
Gould bribed Grant's brother-in-law to get inside information on whether the Treasury would sell gold. It was the first documented case of a presidential relative being used as a market manipulation asset.
03 · The Robber Barons
The Gilded Age compressed power into individuals. Vanderbilt, Gould, Rockefeller, Morgan — they controlled rail, oil, steel, and the wire services that reported on themselves. The word of one man moved continents.
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