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    The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age
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    The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age
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    The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age

    Written by Janet Wallach

    Narrated by Coleen Marlo

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A captivating biography of America's first female tycoon, Hetty Green, the iconoclast who forged one of the greatest fortunes of her time.

    No woman in the Gilded Age made as much money as Hetty Green. At the time of her death in 1916, she was worth at least 100 million dollars, equal to more than 2 billion dollars today. A strong believer in women being financially independent, she offered valuable lessons for the present times.

    Abandoned at birth by her neurotic mother, scorned by her misogynist father, Hetty set out as a child to prove her value. Following the simple rules of her wealthy Quaker father, she successfully invested her money and along the way proved to herself that she was wealthy and therefore worthy.

    Never losing faith in America's potential, she ignored the herd mentality and took advantage of financial panics and crises. When everyone else was selling, she bought railroads, real estate, and government bonds. And when everyone was buying and borrowing, she put her money into cash and earned safe returns on her dollars. Men mocked her and women scoffed at her frugal ways, but she turned her back and piled up her earnings, amassing a fortune that supported businesses, churches, municipalities, and even the city of New York itself.

    She relished a challenge. When her aunt died and did not leave Hetty the fortune she expected, she plunged into a groundbreaking lawsuit that still resonates in law schools and courts. When her husband defied her and sank her money on his own risky interests, she threw him out and, marching down to Wall Street, quickly made up the loss. Her independence, outspokenness, and disdain for the upper crust earned her a reputation for harshness that endured for decades. Newspapers kept her in the headlines, linking her name with witches and miscreants. Yet those who knew her admired her warmth, her wisdom, and her wit.

    Set during a period of financial crisis strikingly similar to our current one, acclaimed author Janet Wallach's engrossing exploration of a fascinating life revives a rarely-mentioned queen of American finance.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 25, 2012
    ISBN9780449806722
    Unavailable
    The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age

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    Reviews for The Richest Woman in America

    3.5/5

    43 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a terrific read and I am embarrassed to say I had not even heard of Hetty Green until I read this book. This is more evidence of how many women worthy of note have been overlooked in U.S. history. Another example is the great biography of Frances Perkins, a member of FDR's cabinet and a true pioneer in the welfare of the nation. I encourage readers to pick up this book and spread the word...
    • 5/5
      The subject of this book was a total unknown to me. However, the book was incredible well written. I learned a lot about this, at her time, famous woman. It was also interesting to see that things on Wall Street really haven't changed at all in the past 120 years! My husband read the book after I finished it and he enjoyed it just as much. I will be looking for more books by Janet Wallach!
    • 3/5
      The book begins with an Author's Note that describes how little information there is about Hetty Green, explaining that the book will be a less a traditional biography and more comparable to an impressionists painting. And that is a fair description of the book. Much of the details in the book are about the surrounding times and places, giving context to a character that seems, at times, to be missing. This is not necessarily a fault of the author, but it does leave the reader feeling like they read a weak history of the times of Hetty Green, with some Hetty Green thrown in for flavor.Unfortunately I can't recommend the book, although you may learn something if you are desperate for tidbits about Hetty Green.
    • 4/5
      I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. It's a biography of Hetty Green, a woman who was well ahead of her time. She was a contemporary of the Vanderbilts and Astors and was an extremely successful investor in a period when women simply were not involved in the financial world. Despite being worth millions, Hetty lived simply and shunned the lavish clothing, Newport "cottages," and other ostentatious examples of wealth that many of her contemporaries flaunted. What I found to be most interesting about this book was not necessarily Hetty herself, but rather the economic period in which she lived. Some of the descriptions of the economic uncertainty and the reckless investments of the bank sound like they could have been written about the financial crisis of 2008, not events that occurred a century ago. I found this to be an enlightening and interesting read.
    • 3/5
      While this book does seem to be well researched (especially given the lack of solid info on the subject) the subject itself just never grabbed me. The writing style is fine but the story itself seems little more than a tale of a woman who felt slighted by her family, had a grand sense of entitlement and made a lot of money thru investing. She seemed to perpetually be in some lawsuit fighting for every nickel she felt she deserved. While this was a remarkable achievement for a women in this time period, the story seems the same then as it is today. Wealth of this magnitude is rarely created from scratch but rather from inheritance and wise investing. The old axiom remains forever true; it takes money to make money. Reading about how she did it wasn't exactly an action packed epic.
    • 4/5
      From the little bit of information I knew about Green, called the Witch of Wall Street, I was very suprised by how much I liked her. Intelligent, driven, single-minded, unconventional. All adjectives I like in women can be applied to Green. Flying under the radar initially, she was able to amass such a fortune that she loaned money to the City of New York when they were in trouble. She may not have been the best parent and wife, but I didn't care. Her genius was making and saving money and being willing to go to court every time she felt cheated. She was able to ride out the Depression of 1897 when bigger names lost money and property. An absolutely wonderful biography, easy to read and although containing alot of information on finances it is easily understood. It is incredible that she was able to make her a real person when there was a paucity of primary sources. My only complaint is that this proof version has no photos, which I can't wait to see. A winner.
    • 2/5
      Hetty Green was born in 1834 and, despite being a girl, learned about money and investments from her father (hmm, on reading the blurb, this may not have been where she learned this – at least not directly). She also seemed quite litigious and took offense when inheritances she thought should go to her didn’t. She was a very wealthy woman. I listened to the audio, and though the narrator didn’t appear to have an accent, she did pronounce some vowels oddly, which distracted me. Combine that with really being kind of boring and I wasn’t impressed. Because of being somewhat boring, I may not have the summary exactly right, as I wasn’t paying attention to parts of the book. And I didn’t particularly like Hetty. In some ways, she was obviously before her time.
    • 2/5
      In the introduction to her biography of Mary Shelley, Muriel Spark states that she “ha{s} always disliked the sort of biography which states 'X lay on the bed and watched the candle flickering on the roof beams,' when there is no evidence that X did so.” I took note of this comment because I happen to agree with it. Unfortunately, this biography of Hetty Green is that sort of biography. Apparently there is a dearth of primary sources documenting Hetty Green's life. The author relied on secondary accounts from newspapers and the like. The biography was embellished with all sorts of little actions like skirt brushing and hair smoothing that aren't likely to be documented anywhere. The biography was also padded with lists of national and international news events that occurred at various times in Hetty's life. It made me wonder if the author had a YA audience in mind since most adult readers wouldn't need such long lists in order to understand the events in Hetty's life in their historical context. The reader for the audio version wasn't very expressive or engaging, and her voice magnified the book's flaws instead of diverting my attention from them the way a good narrator can do. Disappointing.
    • 3/5
      I have been fascinated with Hetty Green since reading her biography THE DAY THEY SHOOK THE PLUM TREE many years ago. The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age adds a fresh look at Hetty. A look into the life of a 19th/20th century woman who despite her sex and how women were viewed at the time, amassed a huge fortune. The book is well written and worth a detour.
    • 1/5
      I enjoyed the information about Hetty Green. She drew the disdain of her father and the ambivalence of her Quaker mother because she wasn't born a male. Due to her that neglect she was angry and acted out. However, she had an aptitude for finance and because of that, she gained the respect of her father and grandfather.

      Throughout her life, she went through constant battles including enduring countless court dates contesting the will of her aunt's will, her husband philandering ways, her son's deteriorating leg condition, her daughter's solitude, and her growing paranoia on her enemies trying to poison her. Despite of all that, Hetty was on top financially. Her rules to success are tried and true: buy when others are selling, sell when others are buying, invest in land, live way below your needs. Indeed, Hetty Green was the richest miserly woman in America in the Gilded Age.

      Had that been the entire novel, with sprinkles of the culture on New York through the Gilded Age, Wallach would have succeeded wonderfully and this would have been a four starred review easy! However, Wallach stuffed it with useless information about real estate, debutant life, and the allegorical meaning of Baum's The Wizard of Oz. Some of the information was very interesting and if Wallach wants to pen a novel about New York's Gilded Age, I would read it.

      I suspect the reason Wallach went off on random verbose tangents is because there really isn't information on Hetty Green. I tried looking up information and I found three reputable sites with the same information. That explains why she would rephrase Hetty Green's rules 70 times within a chapter. It must have been tough for her to come up with with the recommended page count with such scant information on the source material. I can't fault Wallach. She did the best she could but I can't forgive her either.
    • 4/5
      Hettie (alternately Hetty) Green was born into a family that rejected her. Her father, convinced that he was having a son, was terribly disappointed. When his son was born, 9 months later, only to die, he was bereft, as was her mother. She was further rejected and was sent to live with her grandfather.Hettie had a very strict and rigid Quaker upbringing, and she learned the lessons well, exhibiting the values and standards of the Friends, for most of her life. She was frugal, moral and honest, if not always kind, in the way she lived and conducted her affairs. She remained a Quaker until very late in her life when she converted, was baptized, became an Episcopalian like her husband, and was buried next to him.She worked hard to gain the love and respect of her father and did succeed, eventually. She found it easy to make money. Her philosophy worked. She was bright and she proved herself worthy of taking over the family business, at a time, in the mid 1800’s, when there were few rights for women and fewer men who gave them the respect that was due an intelligent, accomplished woman, who was expected to do nothing more than shop, embroider, conduct social affairs, and matters of the home. Business skills were unnecessary and thought of as inappropriate for females.Hettie, however, rose to become a powerful businesswoman with great influence on everything she undertook. Although her business prowess was admired, she was often mocked for it, even though a man with the same skills and success would have been praised for his acumen.As a young girl, in order to find a suitor, her aunt enrolled her at a fine school for dance, in Sandwich, a town in Cape Cod, MA. There she learned proper decorum and how to conduct herself with grace and charm. However, she was often portrayed as disheveled, never really concerned with vanity or appearance. She was educated intellectually at Friend’s Academy, a Quaker school, where her father’s financial and moral lessons were enhanced.Hettie married Edward Green, a man of considerable reputation and wealth. They lived in England for several years and Hettie bore two children, Ned and Sylvia. Both her father and her aunt, who stepped in after the death of her mother, and with whom she was extraordinarily close, disappointed her by not trusting her to take care of her own money, leaving their estates in a trust for her, instead, despite the fact that she had proven herself far more capable than many a man. She had hoped for and, indeed, they had promised, to provide her with financial freedom.Hettie’s life was a roller coaster of financial investments in stocks, railroads, property, and mortgages; marital concerns, social engagements, lawsuits, grudges and revenge. The road she traveled was often bumpy, but her indomitable spirit carried her onward to become the most prominent and wealthy woman of her time, withstanding all the arrows of that period.She lived during a century of trauma, the Civil War was raging, she witnessed history with the birth of The Emancipation Proclamation, the writings of Karl Marx, bank failures, stock market crashes, (sounds like today!) the beginnings of the woman’s suffrage movement, the demand for equality, and even the assassination of two Presidents, Lincoln and McKinley. In a man’s world, she was far more successful than men! She survived each crisis on top of the heap.Her father foresaw the end of the whale oil market, he saw the coming age of railroads, he was an astute businessman and investor, and Hettie took after him. However, she was always a penny-pincher until the end, always given to plain taste in clothing and lifestyle, not very interested in charity, but always interested in making more money.Always remembering how she was given short shrift in the wills of her family, she wanted to make sure her own children were well provided for and could be independent. She succeeded. She held sway over their choices and decisions without mercy, and as a result, Sylvia did not marry until the age of 38, and Ned kept company with someone for years that his mother would not accept, whom she called Miss Harlot instead of Miss Harlow.Hettie was nothing, if not outspoken. As a result of her interference, neither child produced an heir to either carry on the name or inherit the fortune. It was doled out piecemeal to many beneficiaries, and the Robinson/Greene family dynasty died with the death of her children.A remarkable woman, whose main interest was simply making money (and she sure made a lot of it before she “shuffled off this mortal coil”, at the age of 82, as the richest woman in America), comes to life and lives on in the pages of this book, thanks to the research and very authentic presentation of her, by Janet Wallach, the author.
    • 3/5
      What a disappointment.....I got an ARC of this one through ER, and really found it hard to get into. It was well written, and researched. It's the story of Hetty Rowland Robinson Green, born to money, sent off to boarding school, raised by the Quakers, inheriting money, thinking she'd married money, etc etc etc. This woman had access to and manipulated obscene amounts of money throughout her lifetime.The book tells that story in cumbersome detail. At times, I felt I was reading a Biblical roll call of stock deals, (i.e., x begat y, y begat z, z begat a and b, etc etc etc). Yes, it was a biography, and the author was obviously feeling bound to explain in excruciating detail all the lawsuits, stock transfers, secret midnight withdrawals, etc that kept Ms. Green as rich as she was. I even tried listening to the audio, but that was even more boring.One of the things that was fascinating was her propensity to move constantly. Supposedly it was to avoid having a fixed address and thereby being able to avoid paying taxes.I was bummed that my Advance copy only contained one illustration. Half of the interest in this reader's mind was the crazy outfits she wore when one day she'd appear disguised as a servant, and that night appear at a dinner party in satin and jewels. It would have been nice to have been able to see some of those pictures. The ARC simply has two empty pages labeled "Illustration Credits".There isn't a lot to say....if you like detailed biographies of interesting women, you'll probably like this book. Just because she was rich, and seemed to exercise a high degree of moral and ethical judgment in how she spent (or rather loaned) all this money, doesn't necessarily make her interesting to me. Yes, she bailed out the city of New York on numerous occasions by loaning them millions at 5%, but perhaps if she'd established a legal residence and paid some taxes, the city might not have had to borrow!!!At the end, she certainly did prove that women are as capable as men of amassing and managing wealth.Edit | More
    • 4/5
      Hetty Green lived from the mid 1800s until the early 1900s. She inherited a large fortune and made it into a massive fortune with her own intellect and financial savvy. As a woman in this era, that was quite a feat. Hetty Green was an admirable, intelligent, informed woman, though not necessarily a very likable one. She inherited a lot of money which she used to make herself incredibly rich but some of her financial practices grated on me. She also gave a very small percentage to charity, thinking that people generally spend too much and save too little. However, she did bail out the city of New York and many business by lending money at low (for the times) rates, so I won't say that she didn't do any good with her money. Also, her children who had no children of their own, gave most of their inheritance away to charities upon their deaths. Hetty Green lived a very thrifty life considering the millions she had. She generally wore old clothes, lived in rented apartments, and owned little. She was married, but controlled her finances on her own as stipulated in her father's will. This is an interesting look at a financial time period in our country that has many parallels to today's financial crisis. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was serious over-leveraging going on, the real estate market was in a big bubble, and the stock market was over-valued. There were several relatively minor crashes that most likely led to the Great Depression (this book doesn't go that far). I found the writing well done and interesting and Hetty Green to be a worthwhile person to know about. All in all a recommended book.
    • 5/5
      At a young age, she learned the business at her grandfather’s knee, continued her financial education while working with her father and was soon poised to take over the family business. Contemplating the woman hailed as one of the richest in America, you would be forgiven if you thought our topic was Fidelity Investment’s Abigail Johnson, highly ranked on the Forbes 400 list. That the subject of noted biographer Janet Wallach’s recent effort died almost 100 years ago makes for fascinating reading. Indeed, Hetty Green’s life, as well as the financial times in which she lived, often seems eerily prescient. Green (1834-1916) came from a stern New Bedford Quaker whaling family. Her quirky childhood, sent shuttling between relatives by her mother’s invalidism, gave her little tether or interest in girlish pursuits. Instead, she received her greatest validation through reading the financial pages to her grandfather and father, accompanying them to visit their holdings and writing business letters on their behalf from a young age. Hetty quickly took to heart the family’s ethos of simplicity and avoidance of waste in personal habit and the preservation and growth of capital. Upon her father’s death, she was disappointed to learn that she only inherited outright a small proportion of his estate, the rest being held in trust for her. Famously litigious, she embarked on a lifetime of law suits aimed at contesting the will and testing the control of the trustees. She quickly multiplied the monies over which she had direct control. When her husband lost some of ‘her’ money through imprudent investing, she swiftly moved to wrest away control of her financial matters. During her lifetime, she engaged in what we would presently describe as ‘contrarian’ investing, buying Civil War bonds and railroad stock at their nadir. By the time of her death, her estate was valued in the billions in today’s dollars. Janet Wallach acknowledges the difficulties a lack of diaries and other first person accounts by Hetty and her inner coterie entailed. She does rely upon a wealth of secondary sources, newspaper and magazine accounts, the accuracy of which cannot always be vouchsafed. It is unclear the extent of any newly discovered material. (I have not read Charles Slack’s 2004 Hetty Green biography and cannot say how they would compare.) It appears Wallach was quite careful to avoid reporting mere rumor and myth, like the many tales of Green’s purported stinginess (e.g., only washing the hems of her clothing to save on soap.) Nevertheless, Wallach’s winsome writing brings Hetty to life with all of her fine aspects and failings apparent. The press dubbed her the “Witch of Wall Street” widely publicizing her pettiness, vindictiveness, and penurious eccentricities. As a mother and wife, she was the antithesis of Mrs. Astor and the other ‘Real Housewives’ of the Gilded Age. Shunning extravagant fashion and interior design, she disappointed the yellow journalists and their hungering readers. Less well known were acts of honor and integrity. Hetty repeatedly came to the rescue of New York City, making enormous loans at rates favorable to the metropolis. She was happiest living among the ‘lower’ classes and often offered sound investing advice. Wallach’s book is at its best in reflecting the financial world of the late 1800’s in the mirror present day. The panic of 1857 is blamed, in part on the lightening speed in which information was transmitted by the latest invention – the telegraph – bringing to mind current day indictments of the internet and robo-investing. She describes multiple banking crises arising out of lack of regulation and oversight, over-leveraged investors, over-heated economies and the failure of the market to police itself. Hetty’s own adages are equally forward thinking: “It is the duty of every woman to learn to take care of her own business affairs.” “Railroads and real estate are the things I like. Government bonds are good, though they do not pay very high interest. Still, for a woman safe and low is better than risky and high.” “I am always buying when everyone wants to sell and selling when everyone wants to buy.” The ceaselessly cyclical nature of the financial markets ensures Janet Wallach’s subject will remain fresh and timeless.
    • 4/5
      The author states right up front that she had limited sources available to tell the story of Hetty Green. The subject didn’t keep a journal or diary, nor did she maintain voluminous correspondence. The main information for Hetty’s life consists of newspaper accounts and interviews (not always reliable), lawsuits (many, many of them) and genealogical sources. Yet, Ms Wallach is able to paint a vivid portrait of Hetty and her times by illuminating what it was like to grow up female in those years and the many obstacles she had to overcome. Born in 1834 in Massachusetts, Hetty Howland Robinson learned the business of business from her Quaker father. And, despite the handicap of her gender, she became the richest woman in America – dying in 1916, the Warren Buffet of her age. The story the author tells is a fascinating one. Hetty was smart and a hard worker. She loved the game of investing (mostly in real estate and railroads) and was fearless – able to “buy low and sell high” – and a contrarian of epic proportions. She bailed out cities, New York more than once. She didn’t need designer clothing or mansions. For the most part she lived in boarding houses.My only complaint about The Richest Woman in America is that the author underestimates her readers. Rather than let us draw our own parallels between the economic times during Hetty’s life and today, she has to hammer it home for us. The intrusion of today into a story about yesterday was annoying and un-necessary. One of the most fascinating things I learned was the economic symbolism in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – published during Hetty’s heyday. It’s a topic I want to learn more about. Review based on published-provided bound galley.