The 1873 financial panic was called the Panic of 1873.
The crisis began in Europe and the United States after speculative railway investment collapsed. In the United States, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 was a decisive shock because the firm had heavily promoted Northern Pacific Railway bonds. The New York Stock Exchange temporarily closed for the first time in its history, from 20 to 29 September 1873.
The panic helped produce the Long Depression, a period of falling prices, weak investment, and high unemployment that lasted through much of the 1870s and, in some countries, into the 1890s. It was not a single-day share-price collapse like the 1987 crash.
A common mix-up is treating the Panic of 1873 as solely an American event. The crisis also affected European financial markets, especially after the Vienna Stock Exchange crash of May 1873. Railway speculation and the international movement of capital connected the markets.