The Panic of 1893 - Part I

"The sudden Panic of 1893 had grown into a full-blown economic depression, and two years later it continued to hold the nation in its tight grip.  All across the country banks had failed, railroads had gone into receivership, farms had been foreclosed, and jobs had disappeared.  The Gay Nineties had turned angry and combative.  Sullen mobs roamed city streets searching for food.  Fistfights broke out on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as companies went bust and fortunes turned to dust.  Strikes erupted into bloody battles, the forces of labor and capital charging at one another without mercy...  Throughout the country there was the feeling that something fundamental had gone wrong  Despair had become a national malaise...

'What had brought America to its knees?..."