The 1893 U.S. financial panic that followed the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad’s bankruptcy was the Panic of 1893.
The crisis began when the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, heavily burdened by debt, entered receivership in February 1893. Investor confidence weakened, and the failure of the National Cordage Company in May intensified the market turmoil. A wave of bank and business failures followed, while railroad securities suffered especially severe declines.
The panic developed into a deep economic depression in the United States. Gold reserves fell sharply as investors and depositors sought safer assets, eventually prompting the federal government to seek emergency support from financier J. P. Morgan. The crisis is sometimes confused with the Panic of 1873, which began two decades earlier and helped start the Long Depression.
The Panic of 1893 was not a single trading-day collapse like the 1929 Wall Street Crash. It was a broader financial crisis involving railroads, banks, currency concerns, unemployment, and prolonged economic contraction.