Hetty Green: The Witch of Wall Street

[Music] that gilded age the period between about 1870 and the turn of the century was a period of rapid industrialization and economic growth in the united states wages increased nearly 60 percent in the period but very unevenly millions of new immigrants and blacks in the south suffering under jim crow laws lived in abject poverty while the very wealthy lived ostentatiously and fought unions and regulations with an iron fist it's how the gilded age got its name actually coined by mark twain saying it was not a golden age but an age of enormous social problems that was covered over with a thin gold gilding and perhaps no single person represents the contradictions of that age more than hetty green she was one of the wealthiest people in america in the era and so popular so well known that she was the subject of songs and yet on the other hand was such a notorious spin thrift that the guinness book of world records has labeled her the world's greatest miser and his history deserves to be remembered henrietta howland robinson was born in 1834 in new bedford massachusetts she was the daughter of edward mott robinson and abby howland quakers owned a large whaling fleet new bedford had become a hub of the whaling industry in the 1760s when prominent whaling families relocated there from boston newport and providence many in the town were quakers who had strict principles of egalitarianism and community building in 1857 when whaling was at its height new bedford was the richest city per capita in the world and hedy's family was near its top her father was called the napoleon of our little business community hedy would be the pair's only surviving child her parents sent her to live with her grandfather when she was just two with his sight failing hedy would read aloud stock quotations and commerce reports and help her grandfather with his correspondence at eight had he collected all the money she'd ever been given or earned and open an account at the bank as she grew older she followed her father to the warehouses and docks and learned to read ledgers and trade commodities with brokers a girl acquires the habit of keeping track of every cent gets the most value for every dollar she spends she said later she was sent to live in new york city for a while and her parents gave her twelve hundred dollars for living expenses she spent very little on living expenses and invested most of the money the 20 year old proudly proclaimed that investment went so well that i soon made many others hedy continued to dress modestly for her entire life so much so that her aunt sylvia thought that she dressed shabbily in return hedy criticized her aunt's clothes her large staff of servants and her indulgences her father instilled the idea that it was his job and then later hers to increase the family's wealth her father got out of the whaling industry just in time and turned instead to oil which had just been discovered in pennsylvania kerosene would make whale oil nearly obsolete in 1864 she met edward greene at a boston hotel had he walked into the hotel room and mr green fell for her a family member later said greene was 14 years her senior a millionaire already they were engaged in the summer of 1865 as her father grew sick her father wanted hedy to marry a man who could manage the money but he also stipulated that hedy's inheritance would be separate and apart from any husband she married and free from the debts control or interference of any such husband when he died most of his 6 million fortune was left in a trust and she felt betrayed her wealthy aunt sylvia died shortly afterwards and hedy would spend years in court fighting for her inheritance hedy was her aunt's only relation and a will had stipulated that all would be left her but a physician who cared for sylvia had helped her write a new will that left much of the money to him hedy was left one million dollars in a trust to be managed by the physician she would only get income from the investments she went straight to court her father had told her that he had been poisoned and had he became paranoid that people were trying to steal her money for days i did not leave my room lived on crackers and raw eggs all the time those schemers were trying to get my money heady's case went all the way to the massachusetts supreme court for one reason attached to the will where she had left everything to heady was a letter which said that her aunt was hereby revoking all wills made before or after this one i implore the judge decide in favor of this will if another was found after her death the physician maintained that the signature on the letter was forged and the case remains important because of a forensic study of that signature simultaneously hedy continued to foster her fortune after the civil war she bought devalued greenbacks paper money secured it not by gold but only by the government's promise at 50 cents to the dollar she was a contrarian investor i buy when things are low and nobody wants them she said i keep them until they go up and people are crazy to get them that is i believe the secret of all successful business the government would later stand by their promise of the greenbacks and hedy pocketed a handsome prophet hetty married edward greene on july 11 1867 but she insisted that he renounce all claim to her money before she would say i do the pair moved to england where they had two children hedy made use of dividends from the trust to invest carefully most important to her was compound interest essentially interest on the interest and she invested cautiously and smartly in one day of that year i added a clean two hundred thousand dollars to my bank account that's the most i ever made in one day she would brag by the end of her first year in london her profits were up to 1.25 million roughly 22 million in 2021 adjusted dollars while others speculated and borrowed money she never borrowed and when bubbles burst her money was safe through meticulous research she invested in railroads she thought were making good decisions for the country's growth the panic of 1873 reverberated around the world ruined rich men but hedy had cash on hand like she always did and she saw opportunity instead of ruin as she would in other panics when no one else would buy anything had he did the greens came back to the us that year living with edward's mother in vermont hedy's scrupulous cheapness made her a stranger to the wealthy she insisted on shopping herself or sending a friend instead of sending the maid because she was sure that merchants would up their prices when they saw a maid shopping she was a master hagler which only decreased her reputation in the eyes of society the wealthy shouldn't look for deals or bargains for potatoes they thought when edward's mother died had he put away the silver and the china for simple kitchenware edward was so furious he smashed a goblet edward had lost his money in the panic and hedy had to loan him money and in exchange she sold his mother's fine goods in what some consider to be the most egregious example of her miserliness her son ned fell from a tree and hurt his knee badly she sent for a doctor but the doctor was miles away and she made a poultice for the wound herself she thought she'd fixed it when the doctor came i waved him away and called him that he wasn't needed if he'd gotten out of his buggy i'd had to pay him even if he didn't do anything you know another version says that she first attempted to have him admitted to a free clinic for the poor and treated net herself when they demanded that she pay ned's injury didn't heal and though they now went to doctors hedy often in the shabbiest of clothes to avoid being charged more for appearing wealthy it was no use the leg was amputated many years later in 1884 edwards gambles went bad again and this time brought her bank with it she demanded that her money be withdrawn but the bank refused she had a half million in cash there a quarter of the bank's assets and 26 million dollars in bonds the bank said that her husband owed over seven hundred thousand dollars and they didn't care that her money was separate they intended to hold her money as collateral for his debt she threatened to sue but in the end she was forced to pay her husband's debt but she took her money and put it in a new bank physically so much they had to find a second carriage to carry it across town soon over her aunt's will was only heady's first foray into the courtroom she would sue often afterwards she even threatened to when a paris merchant sent her lace inferior to what she had picked out she sued the bank for taking her money never forget edward for losing it he stayed married but she bid him farewell nonetheless she worked at the chemical bank on her finances but she refused to pay for a private office and instead worked at open desks or on the floor she spent nearly as much time in court as she did at the bank suing various people over all kinds of financial issues and she worked before deciding on an investment i seek out every kind of information about it and she meant it she loaned millions to the city of new york at low rates and the city comptroller once said that she watched the money currents so closely that when i went to ask her for a loan she often knew how much i was going to require before i opened my mouth by 1905 the los angeles herald could declare that she was the largest money lender in new york her thriftiness or stinginess depending upon your position became a thing of legend she was said to not use hot water that she only wore one pair of clothes until they wore out papers even claimed that she ate only oatmeal eggs and onions all unheated to avoid paying for gas she did often eat onions as a home remedy against colds which gave her a reputation of having bad breath when a hernia bothered her in her old age she went to a doctor to see about fixing it when he told her that the only option was an expensive surgery she replied you're all alike you're just a bunch of robbers she used a stick to press the hernia in and went on her way once she carried two hundred thousand dollars in bonds to her banker walking through new york he admonished her and said that she should have taken a carriage for safety a carriage indeed she said perhaps you can afford to ride in a carriage but i cannot flowers in her home were actually dyed chicken feathers the press called her nasty unpleasant and greedy her opinion was that papers treated her unfairly just because i do dress plainly and do not spend a fortune on my gowns they think i'm like cranky or insane more positively another wrote that she is full of quaintly original sayings new england shrewdness and gumption she is down on trusts lawyers professional reformers and new women fads she believes in the bicycle but draws the line at bloomers well another accuser that she's reduced money making to a fine art and let avras replace some of women's highest attributes stories were told that she dropped a brooch as if it were something hot when she learned it cost 75 cents for her own part she said she believed in discrete charity she gave to schools and hospitals but never bragged about it when clients of her struggle to pay on property she was known to lower the rate of interest to meet his purse she was famously sneaky about avoiding property taxes she never kept a home she would just move from boarding house to boarding house when one tax assessor asked her where she slept she said i don't know can't you recommend a place when grender new york was formed from the five boroughs in 1898 she hopped the river to live in hoboken she made money in bonds and real estate but she did little speculating and never borrowed money she was especially fond of a dog named dewey who she said she liked because he didn't know how rich she was she continued to work nearly until her death she died on july 3 1916 at age 81. the new york times reported that she had a series of strokes her wealth at the time was estimated to between 100 and 200 million dollars the equivalent of about 2 and four billion dollars today her kids inherited most of it and neither one had any children both would get through the depression using her same strategy of not investing in risks and keeping a large cash supply on her daughter's death in 1951 200 million dollars was left nearly all of it donated to colleges churches and charities like someone throwing handfuls of money from a tall building according to one writer heddie green was so famous that her name appeared in songs along with the likes of andrew carnegie john d rockefeller and jp morgan yet she was really very little like the typical opulent rich of the gilded age many of whom could claim that they had won and lost many fortunes by playing fast and loose with railroad speculation or trying to corner markets where they helped to cause crashes she helped lin through them by being candy and scrupulous an antithesis of the age of fast and opulent living for her making money was a duty and a responsibility and keeping it was something of a scoreboard she was proud to out think and held grudges against those who wronged her but she wasn't a robber baron and in private she was said to be gracious friendly and clever for all her reputation of being a crabby miser or a heady green left behind no journals expressing her own thoughts and so much of what we know about the elusive headed green comes from journalism at the time the yellow press of the likes of william randolph hearst perhaps a deeper insight into who she actually was came close to her death when one of her friends said to her you have been such a patient invalid so good and kind to those about you and she responded god has been kind to me so why shouldn't i be good and kind to others i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 117,154

Rating: 4.9822397 out of 5

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, hetty green, wall street, gilded age, witch of wall street, us history

Id: FHeOOVxGft8

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021