The 1873 market collapse that helped begin a long depression in Europe and North America is called the Panic of 1873.
The panic began in Vienna in May 1873 and reached the United States after the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September. Railroad speculation, falling land values, and heavily leveraged finance made banks vulnerable. The New York Stock Exchange temporarily closed for the first time in its history.
The downturn became known as the Long Depression, although nineteenth-century economists did not use exactly the same definitions as modern recession statistics. Industrial production and prices weakened for years, while unemployment and labor conflict increased. The panic also contributed to banking reforms and a reassessment of railroad investment risk.