The 1873 crisis that helped begin the Long Depression was the Panic of 1873.
The panic followed a speculative boom in railways and property. In May 1873, the Vienna stock exchange crashed, and financial stress soon spread to other markets. In the United States, the failure of the investment firm Jay Cooke & Company in September triggered a banking panic and forced the New York Stock Exchange to close temporarily.
The resulting downturn lasted for years, although historians debate both its exact duration and whether the label Long Depression best describes the entire period. Prices fell, businesses failed, investment slowed, and unemployment increased across several industrial economies.
The crisis is sometimes confused with the Panic of 1893, another major American financial collapse. The 1873 panic was associated especially with railway speculation and the post-Civil War boom. Its international character makes it an important early example of financial contagion across interconnected markets.