Grover Cleveland was the U.S. president when the Panic of 1893 began with major railroad failures and a stock-market collapse.
The panic began during Cleveland’s second, nonconsecutive presidency. The failure of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in February 1893 helped undermine confidence, and the collapse of the National Cordage Company in May intensified the financial shock. Bank failures, business failures, and unemployment then spread across the country.
A major issue was uncertainty over U.S. monetary policy, especially the government’s commitment to silver purchases and the gold standard. Investors feared that the Treasury’s gold reserves would become inadequate, prompting withdrawals and international pressure. Cleveland supported repealing the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, a politically divisive response.
The panic became one of the worst depressions in nineteenth-century United States history. Cleveland’s successor, William McKinley, took office in 1897, after the crisis had already begun. The episode is therefore associated with both the Harrison and Cleveland eras in public memory, but Cleveland was president when it broke.