Vienna’s stock exchange crash in 1873 helped trigger the long economic downturn known as the Long Depression.
The Vienna Stock Exchange crashed in May 1873 after a period of rapid speculation in property, railways, and company shares. The collapse became known as the Gründerkrach, or founders’ crash, and it helped spread financial distress through Austria-Hungary and beyond.
The Panic of 1873 also involved banking failures in the United States and pressure on financial markets in other countries. Historians debate the exact causes and boundaries of the resulting downturn, but credit contraction, speculative excess, falling prices, and industrial overcapacity all played roles.
The Long Depression is not the same event as the Great Depression of the 1930s. It lasted for many years in parts of Europe and North America, but its timing and economic pattern differed. The Vienna crash is important because it shows how interconnected financial markets were in the nineteenth century.