Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon

Slack looks beyond the lore and historical prejudices to reveal the real 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. nWhen J. P. Morgan called a meeting of New York's financial leaders after the stock market crash of 1907, Hetty Green was the only woman in the room. The Guinness Book of World Records memorialized her as the World's Greatest Miser, and, indeed, this unlikely robber baron -- who parlayed a comfortable inheritance into a fortune that was worth about 1.6 billion in today's dollars -- was frugal to a fault. But in an age when women weren't even allowed to vote, never mind concern themselves with interest rates, she lived by her own rules. In Hetty, Charles Slack reexamines her life and legacy, giving us, at long last, a splendidly nuanced portrait (Newsweek) of one of the greatest -- and most eccentric -- financiers in American history. nThis P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more. n