Hetty

A full century before Martha Stewart, Oprah, and Madonna became icons of female entrepreneurship, there was Hetty Green, Americas richest woman, who stood alone among the roguish giants of the Gilded Age as the first lady of capitalism with a personal fortune estimated at $100 million ($1.6 billion today). In Hetty, Charles Slack reexamines the life, work, and conflicted legacy of this true American original. While derided as a witch of Wall Street in her lifetime, today, Hetty ranks near the top of Americas list of greatest financiers: a brilliant, ruthless entrepreneur, vastly ahead of her time, know simply as Hetty.