The U.S. financial panic associated with failures of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and National Cordage Company was the Panic of 1893.
The crisis developed amid concerns about railroad overbuilding, weak business conditions, and the ability of the United States to maintain confidence in its currency and gold reserves. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad entered bankruptcy in February 1893, and the National Cordage Company failed in May. These events intensified fear among investors and depositors.
More than 500 banks and thousands of businesses and railroads failed during the depression that followed. Unemployment rose sharply, and the crisis became one of the most severe economic downturns in nineteenth-century America. The depression also contributed to political conflict over whether the monetary system should rely more heavily on silver.
The Panic of 1893 is distinct from the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1907. Those episodes also involved banking and market stress, but they occurred in different economic and political circumstances.