Also known as "the man who financed the Civil War," because he started a 1873 financial collapse, aka The Panic of 1873. This, in turn sparked a severe nationwide depression. On January 1, 1861, Cooke established Jay Cooke & Company in Philadelphia.
 He invested in the Northern Pacific Railroad, but the railroad's continuing loss of money and a general bad money market caused insolvency and Jay Cooke & Company folded. The fall of Jay Cooke and Co.  started a financial panic wherein several companies went bankrupt and the stock market crashed. Overspeculation and a lack of money caused a nationwide depression that affected millions of people for the rest of the decade.