Once upon a time in the Gilded Age, the richest woman in the United States, and maybe in the world, made her home in Vermont. Her name was Hetty Green, and she lived in Bellows Falls. And by most accounts, she was shrewd, ornery, and ill-dressed. Hetty’s father left her a million dollars when he died. By the time of her own death at the age of 83, she had built a fortune worth between 100 and 200 million dollars. (Today that would equal approximately 4.7 billion.) She invested mostly in railroads and real estate, and as a financier, loaned vast sums of money to the City of New York to help keep it afloat in the early 1900s. When she married Edward Henry Green, she and her family insisted on a pre-nup that kept her husband from her money and excluded him from directing or influencing her investment decisions. Some other Americans, including the Morgans and the Rockefellers, were getting rich at the time; virtually all of them were men.
No Ostrich Feathers: Hetty Green
No Ostrich Feathers: Hetty Green
No Ostrich Feathers: Hetty Green
Once upon a time in the Gilded Age, the richest woman in the United States, and maybe in the world, made her home in Vermont. Her name was Hetty Green, and she lived in Bellows Falls. And by most accounts, she was shrewd, ornery, and ill-dressed. Hetty’s father left her a million dollars when he died. By the time of her own death at the age of 83, she had built a fortune worth between 100 and 200 million dollars. (Today that would equal approximately 4.7 billion.) She invested mostly in railroads and real estate, and as a financier, loaned vast sums of money to the City of New York to help keep it afloat in the early 1900s. When she married Edward Henry Green, she and her family insisted on a pre-nup that kept her husband from her money and excluded him from directing or influencing her investment decisions. Some other Americans, including the Morgans and the Rockefellers, were getting rich at the time; virtually all of them were men.