The 1873 financial crisis associated with the collapse of Jay Cooke and Company is called the Panic of 1873.
Jay Cooke and Company, a major U.S. investment bank, failed on September 18, 1873, after it could not sell enough bonds connected with the Northern Pacific Railway. The failure undermined confidence in banks and railroads, and the New York Stock Exchange closed temporarily. The shock spread through financial markets in the United States and Europe.
The panic helped begin a long period of economic weakness often called the Long Depression, although historians debate the exact boundaries and causes of that depression. Excessive railway investment, speculative financing, and monetary pressures all played roles. The crisis is sometimes remembered only as an American event, but it had international dimensions, including a banking crisis in Vienna earlier in 1873. Its connection to railroad finance makes it a useful example of how stock speculation, bond markets, and bank failures can reinforce one another.