Vienna’s stock exchange suffered the crash known as Black Friday during the Panic of 1873.
On 9 May 1873, panic selling struck the Vienna Stock Exchange after a period of intense speculation in shares and property. The event is known in German as the Gründerkrach, or “founders’ crash,” and it helped end the boom associated with Austria-Hungary’s rapid economic expansion after the 1867 Compromise.
The panic spread internationally. Financial failures affected banks and companies in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere, while the United States experienced its own major market break later in the year. The resulting downturn is often called the Long Depression, although historians debate its exact duration and severity across countries.
Vienna is not the same event as the New York panic of September 1873. New York’s crisis followed the failure of Jay Cooke & Company and the suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Both episodes belonged to the wider international financial crisis of 1873.