The Money Market Panic in America: Scene at the Stock Exchange, San Francisco.

The Panic of 1873 was caused by  American Post-Civil War inflation, rampant speculative investments primarily in railways, a large trade deficit, ripples from economic dislocation in Europe resulting from the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), property losses in the Chicago (1871) and Boston (1872) fires, and other factors put a massive strain on bank reserves.