Copyright © 2012 by Janet Wallach
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
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Jacket design by John Fontana
Jacket photograph of street © Street Scenes, Fifth Avenue, 57th to 59th Streets, ca. 1897, Museum of the City of New York, Byron Co. Collection; inset image of Hetty Green courtesy of the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wallach, Janet
The richest woman in America : Hetty Green in the Gilded Age / Janet Wallach. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references
(alk. paper)
1. Green, Hetty Howland Robinson, 1835–1916. 2. Women capitalists and financiers—United States—Biography. 3. Millionaires—United States—Biography. I. Title.
HG2463.G74W35 2012
332.092—dc23
[B] 2012005657
eISBN: 978-0-385-53198-6
v3.1
To Bob
My Symphony
(a favorite poem of Hetty Howland Robinson Green)
To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
And refinement rather than fashion;
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly,
Talk gently,
Act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;
To bear all cheerfully,
Do all bravely,
Await occasions,
Hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.
WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Prologue
Chapter 1
The Spirit Within
Chapter 2
A Polished Reflection
Chapter 3
A City of Riches
Chapter 4
America Booming
Chapter 5
Irrational Exuberance
Chapter 6
A Willful War
Chapter 7
A Will to Win
Chapter 8
A New Life
Chapter 9
Return to America
Chapter 10
A Forceful Woman
Chapter 11
Changing Times
Chapter 12
Against the Trend
Chapter 13
The Education of Children
Chapter 14
Texas
Chapter 15
The Glitter of Gold
Chapter 16
Crazy as a Fox
Chapter 17
A New Hetty
Chapter 18
Family Matters
Chapter 19
A Cool Head
Chapter 20
Panic Again
Chapter 21
Remarkable Changes
Chapter 22
Home
Epilogue
THE WISDOM OF HETTY GREEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
About the Author
Photo Insert
Other Books by This Author
Author’s Note
Hetty Green left no diaries, journals, or correspondence, no personal jottings to serve as a key to her enigmatic ways. She did, however, leave behind thousands of articles and interviews published by newspapers and magazines around the world. They range from a few brief lines to lengthy accounts. Some of them are reliable, many are not. It took scores of hours to read these stories and scores more, combing through the myths, to begin to understand her. For these reasons, this is not a traditional biography: it does not have the precise images, the fine line drawings, that such a book requires: rather, it is an impressionist painting, a series of brushstrokes meant to shed light on a woman and her times.
Hetty Green respected reporters and enjoyed talking to them. She understood the value of newspapers, and, from childhood on, she read the evening news to her father and grandfather. As an adult, she used the news as a matter of course in her daily investing. But though she relied on newspapers, much of what was reported about her was smeared with the yellow journalism so popular in her day. Worse, the snarky stories were repeated again and again, changing and growing like Pinocchio’s nose. And she too repeated her stories and changed her accounts, embellishing facts here, embroidering memories there. She liked to attract attention and she enjoyed saying outrageous things.
Hetty Green was a strong and independent woman who rejected the trappings of her upper-class background and avoided the glittery style of the Gilded Age. Instead, she broke new ground and set her own course for marriage, family, and a career. She encouraged girls to educate themselves about business; she urged women to manage their own money and take control of their finances. In her own investing, she ignored the emotions of the crowd and kept a cool head. I hope that reading about her wise financial ways will inspire others. And every once in a while, as Hetty no doubt would have wanted, I hope that her words make the reader smile.
Prologue
A pack of reporters swarmed around the woman who emerged from the heavy doors of the courthouse. A cape of black cloth wrapped her tall frame, a black bonnet obscured her thick gray hair, a frayed black purse hung from her wrist. A passerby might say she looked as poor as a church mouse, but her clothes were merely a costume to conceal her incredible wealth. Standing in front of the granite building was Hetty Green, the richest woman in America.
A twinkle lit up her blue eyes, a half smile appeared on her lips as she glanced at the eager men and shook her head in resignation. She was, admittedly, the smartest woman on Wall Street, a financial genius, a railroad magnate, a real estate mogul, a Gilded Era renegade, a reliable source for city funds. Wherever she went, whatever she did, reporters were lurking, ready to hound her: Where was she living? Where was her husband? What about her children? How many millions did she have now? How did it feel to be the richest woman in America? Did she win the case? Who would she sue next?
“I have had fights with some of the greatest financial men in the country,” she said in her broad New England accent. “Did you ever hear of any of them getting ahead of Hetty Green?”
Pleased with her victory in court on that spring day in 1896, her rights affirmed by the judge, she assured the men she was content with her work, at peace with her life.
If it was true that her constant lawsuits filled court dockets and her mounds of dollars overflowed bank vaults, it was also true that she was devoted to her children, adoring of her dogs, loving to youngsters, kind to strangers, and generous to friends. But reporters and readers refused to acknowledge her softer side; they demanded something more of the nation’s richest woman. They did not begrudge her the piles of money, if only she would allow them the vicarious pleasure of spending it. What was the point of being a multi-multimillionaire if she did not carry out the role, if she did not parade about in Worth dresses or reside in beaux arts mansions, if she did not appear at the opera and neve
r dined at Delmonico’s?
The public resented the somberness of her clothing, the plainness of her diet, the austerity of her home. Her starched New England values did nothing to enrich their impoverished lives. But Hetty Green refused to yield to the role of Gilded Age socialite. Indeed, she refused to comply with any stereotype. Defiantly independent, she made her own rules and lived by them, even if she sometimes changed them in midstream.
Whatever methods she used to make her money, however, she would not succumb to the tactics of other millionaires. She did not employ workers at slave wages, did not steal land from the public or outsmart stockholders or pay off government officials like some. She did not scheme with Wall Street or speculate with other people’s money. No, she told a reporter, her formula for success was simple: common sense and hard work. Yet the press portrayed her as cruel. “I am in earnest,” she said. “Therefore, they picture me as heartless. I go my own way, take no partners, risk nobody else’s fortune.”
Her holdings ranged from gilt-edged mortgages and real estate in New York to dozens of buildings in downtown Chicago; gold, copper, and iron mines out west; diamonds and pearls; railroads; and government bonds. She was considered the single biggest individual financier in the world. By the time she died in 1916 she was worth a minimum of $100 million, the equivalent of more than $2 billion today. She achieved the financial ranks of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan, and Gould and would have made the latest Forbes Four Hundred list.
The image she saw in the mirror was a singular woman swimming against the tide, struggling to survive in a sea of hostile men. Even now, triumphant in her latest court case, she knew there were others trying to snatch away her fortune. She was a woman alone in a world of envious men. “I am Madame Ishmael,” she proclaimed, “set against every man.” She fought the battle all her life.
Chapter 1
The Spirit Within
The rancid smell of whale oil pervaded the air and perfumed the purses of New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1841. When Herman Melville arrived at the wharves in search of work, square-masted whaling ships flew Union Jacks and tricolors alongside boats flying flags from Russia and Spain, but the Stars and Stripes waved for the largest fleet of whalers in the world. The local sloop Acushnet, sailing for the Pacific, gave Melville a place on its crew, and he soon began the expedition that inspired his masterpiece Moby-Dick.
While his captain acquired provisions and assembled a crew, the writer strolled along the streets. On slippery cobblestones that sloped down to the river, he passed odd-looking sailors from near and far: dark-skinned men from Cape Verde, blond-haired boys from the Netherlands, swarthy sailors from Portugal, dreaded cannibals from Fiji, tattooed natives from the South Seas, and runaway slaves newly arrived on the Underground Railroad from the South. With time on their hands before their ships set sail and their last prayers at the Seamen’s Bethel yet unsaid, they roamed the shops, packed their pouches with tobacco, purchased razors, blankets, and mattresses stuffed with straw, stopped at the public houses to down some shots of rum, paid visits to the brothels, and slept at the Swordfish Inn or the Crossed Harpoon.
Along the bustling waterfront hundreds of men toiled on the boats. Caulkers, riggers, carpenters, and other craftsmen slogged for adventure, escape, and a share in the profits. Sweat oozed from the pores of the sailors as they off-loaded the casks of whale oil that lighted America’s homes, lubricated its tools and instruments, and primed its paint and varnish. Salty language flowed from their lips as they lugged the whalebone that corseted and hoop-skirted the women, perfumed the ladies with ambergris, stayed the men’s collars, handled the buggy whips and walking sticks, and entertained the children with chess pieces and piano keys. Whale oil was as valuable then as petroleum is now.
While the sailors hauled the barrels, the captains inspected their ships. On the top decks they checked the brick furnaces: as soon as the whales were caught, their blubber was burned down until it turned into oil. Squinting up at the crows’ nests the men saw the lookouts high on the masts where sailors at sea could spot the whales. They thrilled recalling the words “Thar she blows!” and prayed they had the right answer when they returned from their expeditions. “What luck? Clean or greasy?” the owners always asked, hoping the barque was slick with oil.
As Melville walked along the wharves he passed blacksmiths, ironmongers, sail makers, and warehouses filled with supplies. A whaling trip took five hundred barrels of fresh water; fifty barrels of salt; seventy barrels of flour; one hundred gallons of molasses; four hundred pounds of coffee; four hundred pounds of sugar; and enough dried apples, pork, rice, beans, beef, butter, cheese, codfish, corn, raisins, potatoes, onions, liquor, tea, and tobacco to satisfy the hunger of twenty-five men for as long as forty-eight months. In addition, a ship needed spermaceti candles, linseed oil, pine board, pine nails, oak nails, gunpowder, copper sheathing, cordage, flags, bricks, lime, cotton, canvas, twine, tar, and paint to keep it seaworthy, harpoon the whales, and, four years later, return with the prize to New Bedford.
At the countinghouses nearby, clerks perched on high stools and, pencils in hand, leaning over account logs, entered the whalers’ expenses and income. At the trading firm on Pleasant Street, whaling owners bought and sold commodities, hedging bets on the future cost of provisions and the price they might get for their goods. Close by at the fresh oyster stand on the wharf, the whalers swallowed the slippery oysters and slurped the juice, joined at lunchtime by men who manufactured steam engines, boilers, sewing machines, candles, or leather shoes, who sold insurance or dry goods, served as lawyers, published newspapers, or ran the banks.
Heading up from the waterfront and the railroad station built in Egyptian Revival style, Melville edged his way along the narrow streets. Pink-cheeked women in horse-drawn carriages rode by, while freed colored men, white men in well-cut suits, and Quakers in dull coats and wide-brimmed hats passed one another on the sidewalks. Inside the granite banks, clerks and officers welcomed dozens of men making deposits and others seeking loans to sow their businesses. In the small wooden shops the atmosphere bustled with women buying brocades from France, tea leaves from India, and spices from the Middle East. At Polly Johnson’s popular store, girls and boys licked whipped-cream cakes while the colored owner helped them decide over chewy ginger cookies or candy sticks. In the back of the shop Frederick Douglass practiced a speech on abolition.
Farther up the hill stood the Lyceum, where Emerson delivered his lecture, and buildings of every sort, from the Unitarian church with its crenellated towers to the Quaker meetinghouse, simple and square, called congregants to prayer. Streets shaded by elms and horse chestnuts boasted gracious gardens and stately homes occupied by sea captains and shippers, manufacturers and merchants, bankers and businessmen, many of whom were members of the Society of Friends, the first settlers of New Bedford. Inside the Federal frame houses and the granite houses in Gothic or Greek Revival style where Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, Catholics, and even a few Jews lived, fancy furniture and vivid silks embellished the rooms. But the stone house of Edward Mott Robinson and the Greek Revival of his father-in-law, Gideon Howland Jr., avoided show of any sort—no stripes or florals or gaudy colors; like their clothing, their plain Quaker homes lacked adornment.
Everyone in New Bedford, white or black, worldly or Quaker, had an interest in whaling. Whether it was a quarter, an eighth, or a thirty-second, they all bought a share in the expeditions. New Bedford residents owned more whaling ships than the people of any other town, and though the voyages might end in disaster—the ships lost at sea, destroyed by mutinies, or downed by storms—more often than not they brought home a bountiful return. One journey alone might bring back $100,000 in whales. It wasn’t only Americans who bought the by-products of the giant mammals: seven million gallons of whale oil and two million pounds of whalebone were exported every year.
But ships could not be built, sailors could not be hired, supplies could not be purchased to launch a voya
ge without money from the banks. The Howland and Robinson families were a mainstay of whaling and banking: their agency, Isaac Howland Jr. and Company, owned more ships than any other in town, their banks made more loans than most, and their personal wealth ranked near the top. To New Englanders of every sort, prosperity was a virtue. To those in the Society of Friends, wealth was the visible sign of election by God. For Edward Mott Robinson, wealth was an obsession, a relentless pursuit of righteousness.
The shrewd, sagacious businessman held his money closely, followed the Quaker precepts, and attended the Quaker worship. Almost everyone he dealt with was Quaker. He trusted his brothers in commerce and knew he could rely on them for honesty and goodwill, candor and rectitude.
Seven years earlier in a quiet Quaker ceremony, Edward had married his partner’s younger daughter, Abby Slocum Howland. Like the Jews who lived in nearby Newport, the closely knit Society of Friends prayed together, transacted business together, and married within their circle. Howlands, Hathaways, Rodmans, Rotches, Grinnells, and Pells: it was rare to find a family in which these names were not entwined. Nor was it easy to find a family without the given names of Isaac, Moses, or Samuel, Rachel, Rebecca, or Sarah. The Bible had its place in every house and daily readings ensured that family members could quote the Scriptures chapter and verse. Indeed, the Quakers cited them at their special meetings where they quelled their members’ anger and helped them resolve disputes. Anger, they believed, was the cause of war. As conscientious objectors, they promoted peaceful coexistence.
Through their method of dialogue, they kept their members out of the law courts and kept their quarrels from spiraling outside their sphere. Their ministers and arbitrators, women as well as men, mediated family arguments and settled business feuds. All were equal in the eyes of the Friends, and women played an important role in religious and business affairs. Independent and often outspoken, they ran their own meetings, made their own decisions, and frequently managed their own businesses.
The Richest Woman in America Page 1