Which European exchange crash in 1873 helped begin the period known as the Long Depression?

The Vienna Stock Exchange crash of 1873 helped begin the period known as the Long Depression.

A speculative boom in property and railway companies had developed in Austria-Hungary after financial reforms and rapid investment. On May 9, 1873, confidence broke at the Vienna Stock Exchange, producing a dramatic collapse known as the Gründerkrach, or founders’ crash. The panic spread through financial connections and contributed to banking failures and falling investment across Europe.

The United States experienced its own major financial panic later in 1873, after the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company. Credit contracted, railways suffered, and a long period of weak prices and economic stress followed in several industrial countries.

Historians debate how to define and date the Long Depression, so the Vienna crash should not be treated as the sole cause of every later downturn. It is best understood as an early trigger in a broader international financial crisis, not as one isolated exchange event.