{"id":3789,"date":"2021-03-08T01:03:51","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T00:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barefootnewyork.com\/some-great-new-york-women-hetty-green-the-witch-of-wall-street-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-03-08T01:54:56","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T00:54:56","slug":"some-great-new-york-women-hetty-green-the-witch-of-wall-street-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barefootnewyork.com\/en\/some-great-new-york-women-hetty-green-the-witch-of-wall-street-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Great New York Women – Hetty Green, “The Witch of Wall Street”-"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you search Hetty Green on the internet, Wikipedia subtitles her photograph with the words \u201d American Businesswoman\u201d. Nothing exceptional for todays standards, right? Well, Henrietta\u00a0Howland Robinson Green ( this is her full name) was actually born in 1834 and she lived her adult life in a World where\u00a0women 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).<\/i> This woman defied all these customs and laws becoming the \u201cwealthiest woman in the World<\/em>\u201d on the same level of Russell Sage, JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and other financiers and tycoons of the day,\u00a0totally independent by men who feared this powerful and financially savvy woman to the point that she was nick named \u201d THE WITCH OF WALL STREET\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s financial papers and when she learned how to read, she became her grandfather\u2019s \u201cassistant\u201d 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 \u201cNever owe anything to anyone, not even a kindness\u201d. 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 \u201d Sexy and the City\u201d look? No\u2026she sold them all and invested the revenue in government bonds!<\/p>\n

When she inherited $7.5 million \u00a0she 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\u201d A good business woman is often sharper than a great business man\u201d.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 \u201cThe Witch of Wall Street\u201d spreading many rumors about her social habits, her extreme frugality and cruelty towards her family members.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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 . \u00a0As 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s personal financial resources. She then decided to \u201cseparate\u201d from him, not only financially but also physically.\u00a0She 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- \u00a0instead, 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\u2019s about $600 to $1,500 in today\u2019s dollars).\u00a0She never splurged, maintaining what she called \u201ca Quaker style of life\u201d. \u00a0When 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.\u00a0Her old style black dress, was renown among the Lower Manhattan\u2019s crowd !<\/p>\n

On July 3, 1916, Hetty Green died at age 81 at her son\u2019s New York City home, apparently after\u00a0arguing with a maid over the virtues of skimmed milk. Who knows if this is just another \u201cstory\u201d 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!!!<\/p>\n

The richest\u00a0woman in the World.<\/p>\n\n\t\t