If you search Hetty Green on the internet, Wikipedia subtitles her photograph with the words ” American Businesswoman”. Nothing exceptional for todays standards, right? Well, Henrietta Howland Robinson Green ( this is her full name) was actually born in 1834 and she lived her adult life in a World where women were considered second class citizens, property of the men in their families, with no vote rights , education rights nor property rights (their assessments were managed by fathers or husbands). This woman defied all these customs and laws becoming the “wealthiest woman in the World” on the same level of Russell Sage, JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and other financiers and tycoons of the day, totally independent by men who feared this powerful and financially savvy woman to the point that she was nick named ” THE WITCH OF WALL STREET”.
Born into a wealthy Massachusetts Quaker family that made its fortune into the Whaling business, she was raised by her father and grandfather because the mother was always too sick to take care of her. Instead of fairy tales, she fell asleep listening to the father’s financial papers and when she learned how to read, she became her grandfather’s “assistant” reading to the eye weakened man the stock reports. She was well educated and taught to well menage her money, the father used to say to her “Never owe anything to anyone, not even a kindness”. She opened her first bank account at only eight years old, with the pennies she saved from the allowance for being well behaved. When she was 20 years old the father bought her a new, fashionable wardrobe full of expensive dresses (worth $2000 at the time and more that $60.000 today!!!). What did she do? Did she go around town showing off her newly ” Sexy and the City” look? No…she sold them all and invested the revenue in government bonds!
When she inherited $7.5 million she started invest in real estate, railroads and providing private loans. In a time in which women were thought incapable to understand numbers, she was often not taken seriously by men in the world of finance, but Hetty Green always remarked that” A good business woman is often sharper than a great business man”.Her powerful figure made many enemies among men who were scared by her independence, being used to docile women at home, so much that they nick-named her “The Witch of Wall Street” spreading many rumors about her social habits, her extreme frugality and cruelty towards her family members.
She always kept liquid assets and was able to save the City of New York from bankruptcy few times. In 1901 during the Great Panic, she lent the city $1.5 million prevent financial collapse. In 1906 San Francisco’s earthquake had sent the United States into a recession and this reflected on Wall Street, and NYC turned again to Hetty Green for a new loan of $1.1 million . As the Panic of 1907 took over the Country, President Theodore Roosevelt called upon J.P Morgan to organize a group of 30 bankers and industrialist to financially help the United States from collapse and keep afloat. This led to the creation of the Federal Reserve. Hetty Green was the only woman in the room.
She was also unusual in her marriage with Edward Henry Green, a wealthy man with a terrible instinct for finance, that at one point was threatening Hetty’s personal financial resources. She then decided to “separate” from him, not only financially but also physically. She moved to New York from their home in Vermont, but Hetty Green did not do what most millionaires would have -buy a mansion on Fifth Avenue- instead, she lived on Pierrepont St. in Brooklyn Heights and then Hoboken in NJ ,usually under assumed names, and paid $23 to $60 per month (that’s about $600 to $1,500 in today’s dollars). She never splurged, maintaining what she called “a Quaker style of life”. When Edward Henry Green died he was poor and , although they were not together anymore, Hetty wore a mourning black dress for the rest of her life. Her old style black dress, was renown among the Lower Manhattan’s crowd !
On July 3, 1916, Hetty Green died at age 81 at her son’s New York City home, apparently after arguing with a maid over the virtues of skimmed milk. Who knows if this is just another “story” invented by jealous and threatened men or the truth. What we definitely know is that at the moment of her death she owned 100 million dollars, 2.5 Billions in todays money!!!
The richest woman in the World.
You Can’t Buy Everything (1934) was the story of a miserly millionaire businesswoman based on the real-life miser Hetty Green. She was played by Australian-born actress May Robson.
