Charles Slack

Hetty: The Genius & Madness Of America's First Female Tycoon

“This book is more than the story of an eccentric, driven woman; it is a window on the country between the Civil War and World War I when great fortunes were made—even by a woman.”—USA Today A biography of Hetty Green, known as the “Witch of Wall Street,” who dueled with the giants of the Gilded Age and amassed a fortune of $100 million before women had the right to vote A full century before Martha Stewart, Oprah, and Madonna became icons of female entrepreneurship, 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. While derided as “a witch of Wall Street” in her lifetime, today, Hetty ranks near the top of America’s list of greatest financiers. She was a female Citizen Kane and America’s richest woman. She bought and sold real estate and railroads, fought hard and sometimes dirty, cornered markets, and amassed cash reserves to rival the great banks. She was the lone woman among a gallery of Gilded Age rogue heroes-Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and the Vanderbilts. This new biography looks well beyond the lore and historical prejudices to present a brilliant, ruthless entrepreneur vastly ahead of her time, a financial empire ruler known simply as Hetty.