The Long Depression began in 1873 after a major financial crisis and stock-market crash in Europe and the United States.
The downturn followed the collapse of the Vienna stock exchange in May 1873 and the failure of the investment firm Jay Cooke & Company in the United States later that year. These events damaged confidence, reduced investment, and contributed to banking failures and falling prices.
Although historians debate the exact boundaries and severity of the depression, the period is commonly dated from 1873 to 1879 in the United States and from 1873 into the 1890s in parts of Europe. Industrial production and prices behaved differently across countries, so it was not identical everywhere.
The Long Depression is often confused with the Great Depression, which began in 1929. The earlier crisis is also associated with the end of the nineteenth-century railway and investment boom.