Vienna’s stock exchange collapse began the Panic of 1873, a major nineteenth-century financial crisis. The Vienna stock-market crash occurred in May 1873, shortly after a period of intense speculation in property, railways, and company shares.
The crisis spread beyond Austria-Hungary. Banks and companies failed, credit contracted, and financial distress reached Germany and the United States. In the United States, the failure of the investment firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 helped trigger a banking panic and the temporary closure of the New York Stock Exchange.
The Panic of 1873 is sometimes called the Long Depression because economic weakness continued for many years, although historians debate the exact duration and severity. It followed the Franco-Prussian War and a major railway-building boom. The Vienna crash is distinct from the later U.S. Panic of 1893, even though both involved railways, banking stress, and falling asset prices.