The Long Depression began in 1873 after the Panic of 1873.
The panic erupted after the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873. The firm had helped finance U.S. railroads, and its collapse contributed to a financial shock that spread through banks, businesses, and stock markets. The New York Stock Exchange temporarily closed for the first time in its history.
The resulting downturn was especially prolonged in Europe and North America. Falling prices, bankruptcies, unemployment, and weak investment affected many industries, although economic conditions varied by country and sector.
The Long Depression is sometimes called the Great Depression of the nineteenth century, but that label can cause confusion with the worldwide crisis beginning in 1929. The 1873 downturn was not one continuous, identical depression everywhere; historians debate its exact duration and regional pattern.