What company collapse helped trigger the Panic of 1873 in the United States?

Jay Cooke & Company’s collapse helped trigger the Panic of 1873 in the United States.

Jay Cooke & Company was a major U.S. investment bank that marketed government bonds during and after the American Civil War. In the early 1870s, it became heavily involved in financing the Northern Pacific Railway. When investors lost confidence in the railway’s prospects, the bank could not sell enough bonds to meet its obligations.

The firm suspended operations on September 18, 1873. The failure helped ignite a wider banking panic, and the New York Stock Exchange temporarily closed for the first time in its history, from September 20 to September 29.

The Panic of 1873 was also connected to European financial stress and railway speculation. It led to a long depression, often called the Long Depression, although historians differ over the exact boundaries and severity of that period.