Flamboyant Gilded Age financier and partner of Jay Gould — co-conspirator in the Erie War and the Black Friday gold corner attempt (1869), shot by a rival suitor for his mistress.
Black Friday (1869): Fisk and Gould's attempt to corner the gold market — buying up gold futures while preventing the Treasury from selling gold — caused the Black Friday crash, wiped out thousands of investors, and triggered a Congressional investigation. Fisk's subsequent murder (shot by Edward Stokes, rival for Josie Mansfield's affections, in 1872) gave his story the operatic finish it deserved. A figure of pure Gilded Age excess: theatrical self-promotion, financial manipulation, and melodramatic death.
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