The Panic of 1873 followed the September 1873 failure of Jay Cooke & Company in the United States.
Jay Cooke & Company was a major investment bank that had financed railroads, especially the Northern Pacific Railway. When confidence in railroad investments weakened, the firm could not meet demands and suspended operations on September 18, 1873.
The failure helped trigger a financial panic, including a temporary closure of the New York Stock Exchange. Bank failures, railroad bankruptcies, falling prices, and prolonged economic weakness followed in the United States and Europe.
In the United States, the resulting downturn is often called the Long Depression. The name can cause confusion because historians use different dates and definitions for the depression, while the Panic of 1873 refers specifically to the acute financial crisis that began that year.