The collapse of Jay Cooke & Company in 1873 helped trigger the Panic of 1873.
Jay Cooke & Company was a major American investment bank that had financed Union borrowing during the Civil War. In September 1873, its failure followed difficulties selling bonds for the Northern Pacific Railway. The bankruptcy damaged confidence in railroad securities and helped provoke a run on other financial institutions.
The panic spread through financial markets in the United States and Europe. In the United States, the New York Stock Exchange closed for the first time in its history, from September 20 to September 29, 1873. A prolonged economic contraction followed, often called the Long Depression, although historians debate how broadly that label should be applied. The panic is sometimes confused with the Panic of 1893, another major crisis involving railroads and bank failures. The 1873 episode is also associated with the end of the post-Civil War boom and with falling prices across much of the industrial economy.