The first major shock of the Panic of 1873 occurred at the Vienna Stock Exchange.
On May 9, 1873, a wave of panic selling struck Vienna after a period of intense speculation in property and railway companies. The crash became known as the Gründerkrach, or founders’ crash, and marked the beginning of a wider international financial downturn.
The panic spread to Germany and then to the United States, where the failure of the investment firm Jay Cooke & Company helped trigger the September 1873 crisis. Railways, banks, and industrial companies were especially vulnerable because they had expanded rapidly through borrowed money.
The downturn is sometimes called the Long Depression. Although its severity and duration varied by country, falling prices, weak investment, and high unemployment affected much of Europe and North America. It was not the same event as the Great Depression of the 1930s.