Green, Hetty Howland Robinson, 1834-1916

Henrietta "Hetty" Howland Robinson Green (November 21, 1834 – July 3, 1916) was an American businesswoman and financier known as "the richest woman in America" during the Gilded Age. Those who knew her well referred to her admiringly as the "Queen of Wall Street" due to her willingness to lend freely and at reasonable interest rates to financiers and city governments during financial panics. Her extraordinary discipline during such times enabled her to amass a fortune as a financier at a time when nearly all major financiers were men. As a highly successful investor, with a Wall Street office, she was unusual for being a woman in a man's world. Unwilling to participate in New York City high society, conspicuous consumption, or business partnerships, she may have been eccentric and curt with the press but she was a pioneer of value investing. Her willingness to make low-rate loans (with her well-tended reserves of currency) in place of the failing banks during the Panic of 1907 helped bail out Wall Street, New York City, and the United States economy. Nonetheless, she was seen in her widowhood as an odd miser all in black, sometimes referred to sensationally as the "Witch of Wall Street", and later the Guinness Book of World Records even named her the "greatest miser" for a time. Stories that were often cited include her refusal to buy expensive clothes or pay for hot water, and her habit of wearing a single dress that was replaced only when it was worn out. Later evaluations have seen her as perhaps eccentric, but mostly out of step with the excesses of the Gilded Age wealthy, and the contemporary expectations for women, especially of her class.