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38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More genius than mad, December 24, 2004
This review is from: Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon (Hardcover)
Hetty Green was an outsider, a woman in the man's world of Wall Street in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries who was estimated to be worth $100m at the time of her death, or over $1.5bn in today's money.
Hetty became incredibly wealthy by following the "buy low, sell high" rule ruthlessly in real estate, bonds, and stocks. She is remembered as a miser, pedant, and grouch but this reflects the prevailing attitude of the times, where a woman doing the "dirty" work of investing and wealth creation was generally looked down upon.
This short and tidy synopsis of Hetty's life and times makes for great reading, covering the period 1830 to around 1920. The book seems very balanced, finding much good to say about Hetty but she is not idolized and her rough demeanor and pushy personality are evident. After reading this, I am convinced that Warren Buffett would have found her a very tough competitor.
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Whatever else, she did it her way, November 21, 2004
This review is from: Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon (Hardcover)
Hetty Green is commonly called the Witch of Wall Street and has the dubious distinction as being listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as a miser. While her frugality is well documented, a lot of her reputation for meanness is undeserved. Much of that is due to the fact that she was the only woman of that time who managed her own money and the fact that she was very successful in doing so. Unlike so many of her fellow superrich of the time, she did not flaunt her wealth, taking public transportation and living in a modest dwelling. Also, in direct contrast to many people of wealth and power, she did not care what others (her fellow rich) thought of her.
The most distinctive point regarding her life is the contrast between her and the male robber barons of her time. People such as Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan considered it their god-given right to exploit their workers and customers. Worker injury rates were high, work hours were long, and these men amassed massive fortunes on the backs of others. The fact that they spent millions for public works in their later years should not overshadow that fact. Furthermore, wealthy men often thought nothing of milking the public treasury and deceiving investors.
As Slack points out in great detail, Hetty was different, in that while she had a competitive fire that made her ferocious in her business dealings, it was reserved for her opponents. There were many times when she loaned money to public institutions at rates much lower than she could have otherwise earned. She single-handedly bailed the city of New York out several times, loaning money at an interest rate almost half the current rate. She personally financed the water works project of the city of Tucson, Arizona and she also loaned money to many churches. She was always fair in her dealings, as Slack puts it, "Although she could be ruthless in dealing with an enemy, she rarely if ever took the opportunity to kick a borrower when he was down." In no way could such a statement be made about the other, male icons of industry in the late nineteenth century. When the leader of one of her church debtors was in trouble and tried to shame her into forgiving the debt, many other church leaders rose to her defense, noting how much she had helped them and would continue to do so in the future.
Much has been made about how she refused to allow her son's leg to be cared for until she could find free medical care, and the delay led to it having to be amputated. As Slack so emphatically makes clear, this is false. Those who perpetuate the story have no knowledge of the primitive level of medical care at that time. Many doctors were incompetent and Hetty was aware of this. She was constantly shopping around for a cure, looking anywhere she might find one. The fact that her son Ned showed no animosity and followed so well in her footsteps is a tribute to her role as a mother and role model. While Ned did not share her tightness with a dollar, he was no incompetent spendthrift, becoming a powerful businessman in his own right. While he spent freely, it was from the income only and he did not touch the principal of his investments.
I am very glad that this book was written. I find it incredible that of all the very wealthy people of the late nineteenth century, Hetty Green suffers from one of the worst reputations. Although she had her faults, compared to what some of the others were doing at that time, she was a saint. Slack debunks many of the myths, although he pulls no punches, including what was most likely her attempt to commit murder. Hetty Green was the most powerful woman this country has had until very recent times and this is the story of how she lived her life. There is much to admire about the way she did it her way.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
They broke the mold when they made Hetty, April 11, 2005
This review is from: Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon (Hardcover)
Having thoroughly enjoyed Charles Slack's marvelous 2003 offering "Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock The Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteeth Century", I was eager to read "Hetty" despite the fact that I had never even heard of her. She is a largely forgotten figure in American history. In his "Acknowlegements" at the end of the book, author Charles Slack recalls that he embarked on this project at the urging of his mother despite the fact that at the outset "I only had the vaguest idea of who she was talking about." Hetty Green was the daughter of Edward Mott Robinson of New Bedford, Mass. Robinson made his fortune in whaling and his daughter Hetty exhibited a keen interest in business from a very early age. This was highly unusual for a young girl in those days but Hetty was determined to follow in her fathers footsteps. Hetty was raised a Quaker and as such she did not believe in showering herself with luxuries. Rather, she spent virtually her entire life scrimping and saving. This was certainly not necessary because Hetty Green would become by all accounts the richest woman in the world. She owned dozens of buildings in New York, Boston, Chicago and St.Louis. She owned warehouses and gold mines and was also a major player in the emerging railroad industry. She would be a force to be reckoned with on the American financial scene for more than half a century. And you did not cross Hetty Green as her archrival, the legendary industrialist Collis P. Huntington, would discover early on. At the time of her passing in 1916, her empire was conservatively estimated to be valued at more than $100.000.000!!! Charles Slack is a marvelous storyteller. In "Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon" you will also learn about Hetty Green's personal life which in many ways was beyond bizarre. Yes, she did find time to marry and have two children, Ned and Sylvia. But in spite of her enormous wealth Hetty Green spent virtually her entire adult life living in cheap tenements in places like Hoboken, NJ in an effort to avoid the press and more importantly the taxman. But what made Hetty tick was clearly not her personal life. Rather, it was the business world that consumed her. "Hetty" recalls the remarkable story of America's first female tycoon. It is very well written and highly entertaining. Recommended!
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