The 1873 financial crisis that followed the collapse of the Vienna Stock Exchange was the Panic of 1873.
The Vienna crash occurred on May 9, 1873, a day remembered as “Black Friday” in Austria. Speculative investment in railways, construction, and property had expanded rapidly, and the failure of several financial institutions undermined confidence. Financial stress then spread internationally, including to Germany and the United States.
In the United States, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 helped trigger a major Wall Street panic. The New York Stock Exchange closed temporarily, and the ensuing depression brought bank failures, falling prices, unemployment, and prolonged industrial weakness.
Historians debate how to label the wider period: in the United States it is commonly called the Long Depression, while “Panic of 1873” refers more specifically to the crisis’s outbreak and immediate financial shock. These names describe related but not identical scopes.