The Panic of 1873 helped end the railway-led boom known as the Gründerzeit in Germany.
The crisis began in Vienna in May 1873 when the stock-market collapse known as Black Friday undermined confidence. Financial stress then spread to Germany and the United States, where the failure of the investment firm Jay Cooke & Company in September helped trigger a banking panic and the temporary closure of the New York Stock Exchange.
The panic followed years of rapid railway construction, speculative investment, and easy credit after the Franco-Prussian War. Falling asset prices and business failures contributed to a long period of weak growth often called the Long Depression.
The Panic of 1873 is sometimes treated as a single American event, but its origins and effects were international. It also differs from the Panic of 1893, another U.S. crisis driven by railroad failures, bank runs, and concerns about the financial system.