Vienna hosted the stock exchange at the center of the opening shock of the Panic of 1873.
On May 9, 1873, the Vienna Stock Exchange crashed in an event often called the Gründerkrach, or founders’ crash. Speculative investment had surged after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the economic expansion that followed. Investors bought shares in banks, railways, and property ventures at prices that could not be sustained.
The Vienna collapse damaged confidence and helped spread financial distress through Europe and, later, the United States. In the United States, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 helped trigger a banking panic and a long depression. The resulting downturn is sometimes called the Long Depression, though historians debate how broadly that label should be applied.
The Panic of 1873 was therefore international, not merely Austrian. Vienna supplied the opening stock-market shock, while interconnected credit, railways, and banking systems transmitted the effects across borders.