Morgan Stops a Panic from His Library
The Panic of 1907 began with the collapse of the Knickerbocker Trust in late October. Runs spread across New York within days. JP Morgan, then 70 years old, summoned the heads of every major New York bank to his private library at 219 Madison Avenue on 36th Street. He locked the doors overnight and told each bank how much it would contribute to a rescue pool. They agreed. Morgan also pressured the Treasury to deposit federal funds into stressed trusts. The panic subsided within a week.
The 1907 rescue was a private action — no Fed yet existed. Congress was so alarmed that one man could single-handedly stop a national panic that it created the Federal Reserve six years later, in 1913.
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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