Hetty Green: The First Lady of Wall Street

Hetty Howland Green (1834-1916), born Hetty Howland Robinson, and known in her later years as The Witch of Wall Street, was born in the whaling town of New Bedford, Massachusetts to Quaker parents. This biography charts Hetty Green’s extraordinary ascent up the pyramid of wealth to a point where, in the earliest years of the twentieth century, she was being identified as the richest woman in America. The first in a series of brief biographies of significant tycoons, this is an insight into the life and methods of one of the earliest and most influential business women in the US. It examines the source of her wealth, and her method of building upon it. It also profiles those who helped or thwarted her along the way.