The Panic of 1873 was the financial crisis that helped begin the long global depression of the late nineteenth century.
The panic followed speculative expansion in railways, property, and finance. In the United States, the failure of Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 triggered a crisis of confidence and helped force the New York Stock Exchange to close temporarily. Europe experienced related financial distress, particularly after the Vienna stock-market crash earlier that year.
The resulting downturn is often called the Long Depression. It involved falling prices, business failures, unemployment, and prolonged weakness in investment across several industrial economies. Historians debate its precise length and whether “depression” or “deflationary stagnation” best describes the period.
The crisis was international rather than exclusively American. Railways and heavy industry had attracted substantial speculative capital, so falling asset values affected banks, businesses, and workers. The Panic of 1873 is therefore an important early example of global financial contagion.