The 1873 U.S. stock-market panic following the collapse of Jay Cooke & Company was called the Panic of 1873.
Jay Cooke & Company failed in September 1873 after investors lost confidence in its financing of the Northern Pacific Railway. The failure helped trigger a run on banks and a suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Railway speculation and excessive borrowing had made the financial system vulnerable.
The panic was part of a broader international crisis. A stock-market crash in Vienna earlier that year and financial stress in other European markets contributed to a long period of economic weakness. In the United States, the resulting depression included falling prices, business failures, and high unemployment.
The Panic of 1873 is sometimes called the Long Depression's starting point in the United States, though historians differ about the exact boundaries and causes of the depression. It should not be confused with the separate Panic of 1893, which also involved railway failures.