The Panic of 1873 has been described as "the first truly international crisis." The optimism that had been driving booming stock prices in central Europe had reached a fever pitch, and fears of a bubble culminated in a panic in Vienna beginning in April 1873. The collapse of the Vienna Stock Exchange began on May 8, 1873 and continued until May 10, when the exchange was closed; when it was reopened three days later, the panic seemed to have faded, and appeared confined to Austria-Hungary. Financial panic arrived in America only months later on Black Thursday, September 18, 1873 after the failure of the banking house of Jay Cooke and Company over the Northern Pacific Railway. The Northern Pacific railway had been given 40 million acres of public land in the West and Jay Cooke sought $100,000,000 in capital for the company; the bank failed when the bond issue proved unsalable, and was shortly followed by several other major banks. The New York Stock Exchange closed for ten days on September 20.

The financial contagion then returned to Europe, provoking a second panic in Vienna and further failures in continental Europe before receding. France, which had been experiencing deflation in the years preceding the crash, was spared financial calamity for the moment, as was Britain.

Others have argued the depression was rooted in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War that hurt the French economy and, under the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871), forced that country to make large war reparations payments to Germany. The primary cause of the price depression in the United States was the tight monetary policy that the U.S. followed to get back to the gold standard after the Civil War. The U.S. was taking money out of circulation to achieve this goal, therefore, there was less available money to facilitate trade. Because of the monetary policy described above the price of silver started to fall causing considerable losses of asset values, however, by most accounts, after 1879 production was growing, thus further putting downward pressure on prices due to increased industrial productivity, trade and competition.

In America the speculative nature of financing due to both the greenback which was specie issued to pay for the US Civil War and rampant fraud in the building of the Union Pacific Railway up to 1869 culminated in the Credit Mobilier panic. Railway overbuilding and weak markets collapsed the bubble in 1873. Both the Union Pacific and the Northern Pacific lines were center in the collapse; another railway bubble was the UK railway mania.

Because of the Panic of 1873, governments depegged their currencies, to save money. The demonetization of silver by European and North American governments in the early 1870s was certainly a contributing factor. The Coinage Act of 1873 in America was met with great opposition by farmers and miners, as silver was seen as more of a monetary benefit to rural areas than to banks in big cities. In addition, there were Americans who advocated the continuance of government-issued fiat money (United States Notes) to avoid deflation and promote exports. The western US states were outraged--Nevada, Colorado, and Idaho were huge silver producers with productive mines, and for a few years mining abated. The resumption of the US government buying silver was enacted in 1890 with the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.

Monetarists believe that the 1873 depression was caused by shortages of gold that undermined the gold standard, and that the 1848 California Gold Rush, 1886 Witwatersrand Gold Rush in South Africa and the 1898-99 Klondike Gold Rush helped alleviate such crises. Other analyses have pointed to developmental surges (see Kondratiev wave), theorizing that the Second Industrial Revolution was causing large shifts in the economies of many states, imposing transition costs, which may also have played a role in causing the depression.

The most important event of President Grant's second term in office was the severe financial depression by which it was marked. The era of high prices and business activity which had followed the war yielded its legitimate effect in an abnormal growth of the spirit of speculation. The inevitable consequence followed. In 1873 came a financial crash that carried ruin far and wide throughout the country. It began on October 1, in the disastrous failure of the banking firm of Jay Cooke & Co., of Philadelphia, the financiers of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Failure after failure succeeded, panic spread through the whole community, and the country was thrown into a condition resembling that of 1837, but more disastrous from the fact that much greater wealth was affected. Years passed before business regained its normal proportions. A process of contraction set in, the natural change fron high war-prices to low peace-prices, and it was not till 1878 that the timidity of capital was fully overcome and business once more began to thrive.

Industry and trade had flourished beyond precedent during the first years after the war. The high protective tariff contributed its share to the general rush of enterprise. In 1873 railroad mileage had doubled itself since 1860, and this was a prolific cause of rash speculation. While business was expanding the currency was contracting. Paper money had depreciated, and the conditions foreboded a crash. The Jay Cooke firm stood at the head of the great banking concerns. This house had handled most of the government loans during the war, and as already stated, were financing the doubtful Northern Pacific scheme. When this firm broke, strong institutions tottered and thousands of people in every rank of life were stricken with absolute ruin or sufferings that were none the less poignant for being outside the category of direct financial failures. The blow was felt for years in impaired credit, pressure for payment of dues, the lowering of securities and general dread of even safe enterprises. United States bonds fell from five to ten per cent. Savings were exhausted and many banks went under. Labor felt the cruel stroke for long after in the shutting down of factories and the half-time employment. The country was in a state of alarm and disgust at the bitter consequences of questionable acts in Congress, by the Administration, and in the realm of finance, and its indignant resolve to change things for the better was expressed in the heated contest which replaced the Grant administration with that of President Hayes, in 1876.

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