The 1873 financial panic that helped begin a long U.S. economic depression was the Panic of 1873.
The crisis began in an international setting after the failure of the investment bank Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873. Jay Cooke had financed railroad expansion, and its collapse damaged confidence in railroads and related financial institutions. The New York Stock Exchange temporarily closed for the first time in its history.
The panic contributed to a prolonged downturn often called the Long Depression, although historians debate its exact dates and severity. Railroad failures, falling prices, bank distress, unemployment, and reduced investment affected the United States and Europe. Germany and Austria had also experienced a financial crash earlier in 1873.
The event is sometimes confused with later U.S. panics, especially those of 1893 and 1907. The Panic of 1873 is particularly associated with railroad speculation and the failure of Jay Cooke, not with the stock-market crash of 1929.