Ivory marked by the Royal African Company. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Wikimedia Commons.
Jay Gould and Jim Fisk tried to corner New York’s gold market, and the corner collapsed on a Friday in September 1869.
A poor household never bought a gold contract and still felt the jolt when credit and prices jerked.
A merchant who needed gold for a customs bill could be squeezed for a few wild days.
Gould and Fisk used brokers and other people’s money to drive the gold premium up, and many of their allies were ruined when the government sold.
On September 24, 1869, gold prices collapsed after the Grant administration released federal gold.
Gould and Fisk had tried to keep the Treasury from selling so their corner would hold.
Gould largely got out in time, and the episode, called Black Friday, stained the Grant years.
House Report 31, 41st Congress, 2nd Session (1870); Maury Klein, The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (1986)