Panic of 1893

The Panic of 1893 was a severe economic depression in the United States that began in February 1893 amid a run on the nation's gold reserves, railroad overbuilding, and the collapse of speculative investment built up during the 1880s. Contributing pressures included the international Baring crisis in Argentina, an Australian banking crisis, a crash in wheat prices, and fears that the United States would abandon the gold standard under the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. More than 15,000 companies and 500 banks failed, unemployment reached roughly 17 to 19 percent nationally and peaked far higher in industrial states, and about a quarter of American railroad mileage went into receivership. The depression fed the labor unrest of the 1894 Pullman Strike and reshaped American politics, contributing to the Democratic Party's electoral defeats and the rise of William McKinley.