 |
Hetty Green | |
|---|---|
 Green in 1897 | |
| Born | Henrietta Howland Robinson November 21, 1834 |
| Died | July 3, 1916 (aged 81) New York City, U.S. |
| Resting place | Immanuel Cemetery, Bellows Falls, Vermont, U.S. |
| Education | Eliza Wing School |
| Occupation | Financier |
| Known for | Financial prowess, miserly conduct |
| Spouse |
Edward Henry Green
(m. 1867; died 1902) |
| Children | |
| Relatives | Sylvia Ann Howland (aunt) |
Hetty Green (November 21, 1834 – July 3, 1916)[1] was an American businesswoman and financier known as "the richest woman in America" during the Gilded Age. Those who knew her well-referred to her admiringly as the "Queen of Wall Street" due to her willingness to lend freely and at reasonable interest rates to financiers and city governments during financial panics.[2] Her extraordinary discipline during such times enabled her to amass a fortune as a financier at a time when nearly all major financiers were men.[3]
As a highly successful investor, with a Wall Street office, she was unusual for being a woman in a man's world. Unwilling to participate in New York City high society, conspicuous consumption, or business partnerships, she may have been eccentric and curt with the press but she was a pioneer of value investing. Her willingness to make low-rate loans (with her well-tended reserves of currency) in place of the failing banks during the Panic of 1907 helped bail out Wall Street, New York City, and the United States economy.[4] Nonetheless, she was seen in her widowhood as an odd miser all in black, sometimes referred to sensationally as the "Witch of Wall Street", and later the Guinness Book of World Records even named her the "greatest miser," for a time. Stories that were often cited include her refusal to buy expensive clothes or pay for hot water, and her habit of wearing a single dress that was replaced only when it was worn out.[citation needed] Later evaluations have seen her as perhaps eccentric, but mostly out-of-step with the excesses of the Gilded Age wealthy, and the contemporary expectations for women, especially of her class.
- ^ "Hetty Green "the Witch of Wallstreet"" (PDF). nps.gov. National Park Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 25, 2017. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:1was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Rosenblum, Constance (December 19, 2004). "'Hetty': Scrooge in Hoboken". The New York Times. Retrieved July 21, 2007.
Hetty Green was that rarity, a woman who largely through her own efforts amassed a ton of money during the Gilded Age, a time when virtually everyone else getting rich—Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie—was a man. By nearly all accounts she was also a thoroughly unpleasant individual, greedy, petty and often downright nasty
- ^ Daniel, Will. "Meet the 'Witch of Wall Street,' a pioneering value investor dressed in all black who became the world's richest woman—but is wrongly remembered as a cheapskate". Fortune. Retrieved March 17, 2024.