Vienna’s stock exchange gave the 1873 Panic its alternative name, the “Panic of Vienna.”
The crisis began with a stock-market crash in Vienna on May 9, 1873. The collapse followed a period of speculative investment and rapid expansion after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. When confidence broke, prices fell sharply and bank failures spread through central Europe.
The panic soon affected Germany and then crossed the Atlantic. In the United States, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 helped trigger a major financial crisis. The New York Stock Exchange closed temporarily for the first time, and the downturn contributed to a long period of deflation and weak growth often called the Long Depression.
The event is also known as the Panic of 1873 or the Long Depression, which can cause confusion about whether those names describe the initial crash or the broader economic aftermath. Vienna identifies the European market shock that started the chain of failures, while the longer depression describes the extended international downturn.