cloudy gray times, you are now a thing of the past

The American Stock Market Panic of 1893 was overshadowed by the Great Depression during the interbellum and the hand-wringing of today, but notably was also precipitated by a bubble, in railroads--speculation and over-building led to too many trains and inability to profit and compete, and the first spectre of quantitative easing in the mandate for the US government to absorb the seigniorage (fiat) in backing up the Gold Standard with silver certificates and coin. The crisis was not defused until the discovery of gold reserves in the Klondike and the right-sizing of the transportation industry. These events inspired at least one Broadway melodrama called The War of Wealth by playwright Charles Turner Dazey in 1896. Though Dazey portrays economic turmoil and runs on banks portentously, insolvency did not really hit the financial system as a cause rather than an effect until the Panic of 1907, but I suppose few are interested in seeing the theatrics on Main Street, Wall Street or on Broadway.