From Booklist
Hetty Green (1835-1916) was the only woman to make her mark in the financial markets during the Guilded Age of the late 1800s. She parlayed an inheritance of $500,000 into $100 million ($2.5 billion in current money), amassing fortunes in U.S. bonds and real estate through impeccable timing. Immortalized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "world's greatest miser," she kept her family living in modest tenements, dressed in drab clothes, and was a notorious penny-pincher. Dubbed the "Witch of Wall Street," she was widely believed to live an unhappy existence despite her riches. Slack's account reveals a much more multidimensional character than Green was popularly believed to be; yes, she was eccentric, but her wry wit and colorful personality bring humor and pathos to this story. She was unfairly vilified because of her sex, and readers cannot help from cheering for her at every turn. David Siegfried
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Kirkus Reviews
"[An] instructive account…. Slack offers an exemplary retelling for a new generation."


Forbes
"A wonderfully detailed new biography."


Publishers Weekly
"Slack concentrates on telling a good story and telling it well.... [An] entertaining biography."


Newsweek
"[A] nuanced portrait."


Richmond Times-Dispatch
"[A] page-turning portrait of an important and complicated woman."


New York Post
"A fascinating book."


Tucson Citizen
"Fascinating."


Book Description

A full century before Martha Stewart, Oprah, and Madonna became icons, generations before women swept through Wall Street, and decades before they even had the right to vote, there was Hetty Green, America's richest woman, who stood alone among the roguish giants of the Gilded Age as the first lady of capitalism and is remembered as the Witch of Wall Street.

At the time of her death in 1916, Hetty Green's personal fortune was estimated at $100 million ($1.6 billion today), and the financial empire she built on real estate and railroads rivaled that of Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and some of the nation's biggest banks. Today, Hetty Green ranks near the top of America's list of greatest financiers, in company with Microsoft founder Bill Gates and billionaire-investor Warren Buffett. But in history books she has remained merely a footnote, a miser and an eccentric, whose character flaws and personal choices unjustly overshadowed her remarkable accomplishments on the fierce battlefield of American industry and commerce.

In Hetty, Charles Slack reexamines the life, work, and conflicted legacy of the exceptionally resourceful, ruthless, and inimitable woman who turned a comfortable inheritance into a fortune through instinct, courage, cunning, greed, and determination to succeed at a man's game on her own terms: from her childhood in the Quaker community of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where she learned about business by reading financial papers to her father, to the battle over her inheritance that was one of the most controversial legal cases of her time; from her collisions with railroad magnate Collis Huntington to her rescue of New York City from financial ruin.

Looking well beyond the lore and historical prejudices, Charles Slack presents a full portrait of a true American original, a female Citizen Kane who, having turned away from the conventions of her time, as a woman, a wife, a mother, and a mogul, led a life of a different sort, with occasionally tragic results, becoming both a hero and a victim of her era. Above all, it is a story of an uncompromising, larger-than-life, flawed woman who ruled a vast financial empire but was known, simply, as Hetty.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Hetty Green was America's richest woman, who stood alone among the roguish giants of the Gilded Age as the first lady of capitalism and is remembered as the Witch of Wall Street." "At the time of her death in 1916, Hetty Green's personal fortune was estimated at $100 million ($1.6 billion today), and the financial empire she built on real estate and railroads rivaled that of Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and some of the nation's biggest banks. Today, Hetty Green ranks near the top of America's list of greatest financiers, in company with Microsoft founder Bill Gates and billionaire-investor Warren Buffett. But in history books she has remained merely a footnote, a miser and an eccentric, whose character flaws and personal choices unjustly overshadowed her remarkable accomplishments on the fierce battlefield of American industry and commerce." In Hetty, Charles Slack reexamines the life, work, and conflicted legacy of the exceptionally resourceful, ruthless, and inimitable woman who turned a comfortable inheritance into a fortune through instinct, courage, cunning, greed, and determination to succeed at a man's game on her own terms: from her childhood in the Quaker community of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where she learned about business by reading financial papers to her father, to the battle over her inheritance that was one of the most controversial legal cases of her time; from her collisions with railroad magnate Collis Huntington to her rescue of New York City from financial ruin.

FROM THE CRITICS

Constance Rosenblum - The New York Times

In Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon, Charles Slack, a journalist and historian, makes every effort to present an even-handed portrait. He even manages to tease out Hetty's softer side, not an easy task with regard to a woman the Guinness Book of World Records anointed the world's ''greatest miser.''

Publishers Weekly

At the time of her death, Hetty Green (1834-1916) was the wealthiest woman in America, having amassed a $100-million fortune. Perhaps unfairly, however, she is remembered primarily as a mean, litigious and compulsive tightwad who bought bags of broken cookies because they were cheap and who posed as a pauper so doctors would treat her free of charge. In his entertaining biography, Slack (Noble Obsession) tells how this "Wizard of Finance" built an empire of stocks, bonds, railroads, real estate and cash reserves-a considerable achievement for a woman of her time-by devoting every waking moment to making money according to simple principles: buy low, sell high and don't go to pieces in a panic. Stubborn and vindictive, Hetty exacted harsh revenge on her financial enemies, and popular opinion held that such a woman couldn't possibly be happy. But Slack demonstrates otherwise, arguing that Hetty was perfectly content and was merely living according to her own rules. Her children, though, may have been less at ease: Hetty's daughter, who long lived in Hetty's shadow, had the family mansion demolished after Hetty died, and her son made his mark as a big spender. Slack doesn't try to find a moral here; he just concentrates on telling a good story and telling it well. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Andrew Blauner. (Nov.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Slack (Blue Fairways) has written a lively and engaging portrait of the 19th century's Martha Stewart-Hetty Green, the irascible and ruthless female tycoon who took Wall Street by storm, rivaling the wealth of male counterparts Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller. But unlike them, Green left no philanthropic legacy; posterity remembers her, if at all, as every inch the miserly, cunning calculator, hard of head and heart, manipulating her dying aunt Sylvia into bequeathing her fortunes to Hetty alone. Slack makes no bones about this, but he also offers something beneath the caricature-a woman driven by her father's dismissal, a gothically lonely childhood, and an implacable stubbornness and determination that was both a character strength and flaw. Although at times repetitious-Slack reminds us continually that Hetty trusted no one-this detailed account will no doubt delight readers of 19th-century financial history and anyone who likes a good story. Recommended for popular history collections.-Tania Barnes, Library Journal Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews