Bankruptcy of Jay Cooke & Company

Date: September 18, 1873 • Location: Paris, France

Panic of 1873: The American bank Jay Cooke & Company declared bankruptcy, setting off a chain reaction of bank failures.

The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877, continuing until 1879 in the French Third Republic and in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In Britain, the panic started two decades of economic stagnation known as the "Long Depression" that weakened the country's economic leadership. In the United States, the period of economic stagnation was known as the "Great Depression" until the events of 1929 and the early 1930s set a new standard.