The Panic of 1873 followed the collapse of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company and helped trigger a prolonged depression.
Jay Cooke & Company failed in September 1873 after it could not sell enough bonds connected with the Northern Pacific Railway. The failure damaged confidence in railroad finance and helped produce a banking panic. The New York Stock Exchange temporarily closed for the first time, from September 20 to September 29.
The resulting downturn is often called the Long Depression, although historians debate its timing and severity across countries. Railroad overbuilding, falling prices, speculative investment, and international monetary pressures all contributed. A frequent mix-up is placing the event in 1876 or linking it only to Europe; the U.S. panic began in 1873, while financial distress also affected Germany, Austria-Hungary, and other economies.