I am currently reading Edward Chancellor's Devil take the hindmost about the history of financial speculation. A common theme in the book was how early stock speculators in America organised in "pools" and then tried to "corner" the market to move prices in their favour.
The book lists many of these tries that failed spectacularly but none that was successful. I wonder, is there any documented case of a "corner" that worked during this period?
I don't know the specifics of it and I don't have the book to hand, but William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis definitely discusses early attempts to corner the market in grain futures. The book is a history of Chicago, and one chapter deals with the way that the city became a new kind of market and entrepot for grain, largely as a result of grain elevators and railways. These technological developments led to the creation of a futures market in grain, hence the title of the chapter, "Pricing the Future." Once the futures market existed, there were periodic attempts to corner the market. This is, of course the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and not the NY or some other stock market; but, all the same, it is an early history of "corners."