The 1873 financial crisis helped begin the period later called the Long Depression.
The crisis started in Europe and the United States after speculative railway investment and property prices became unsustainable. In the United States, the failure of the investment bank Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 triggered widespread bank runs and forced the New York Stock Exchange to close temporarily.
The downturn spread internationally and was followed by falling prices, business failures, unemployment, and reduced investment. Historians debate the exact dates and severity of the Long Depression, but many accounts place its beginning in 1873 and its end in the mid-1890s.
This event is distinct from the better-known 1929 crash. The 1873 panic took place during rapid railway expansion and the transition toward modern industrial finance, while the 1929 crash followed a different era of mass securities speculation and consumer credit growth.