CHAPTER 10: A FORCEFUL WOMAN
1 Outdoors in the Central Park: Ishbel Ross, Crusades and Crinolines (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).
2 But when young Ned: There are various versions of what happened to Ned’s leg, including stories in several newspapers and books and one in an unpublished book by John Nicholas Beffel and Walter Marshall (John Beffel Papers, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University).
3 the family traveled together: The Chicago Tribune reported the comings and goings of Hetty and Edward Green, and on the pillow fight.
CHAPTER 11: CHANGING TIMES
1 “Our country’s prosperity”: USA Today, March 25, 2010.
2 each decided on its own time: Concerning the confusion over time zones, see the following sources: Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation (New York: Harper Perennial, 2010); Warren TenHouten, Time and Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005); Patricia Murphy, Time Is of the Essence (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001); Beatty, Age of Betrayal.
3 The railroads’ dynamic potential: Describing the ups and downs of the railroad and the role of Edward H. Green: Kindcaid Herr, The Louisville and Nashville Railroad (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2000); Klein, Louisville and Nashville Railroad.
4 his reputation as a bachelor: The Beffel/Marshall Papers, John Beffel Papers, Wayne State University.
5 “Do you buy long or short?”: Henry Watterson, Marse Henry: An Autobiography (New York: D. H. Doran, 1919), 208.
6 she demanded the house: For records of ownership, see Town Hall records, Bellows Falls.
CHAPTER 12: AGAINST THE TREND
1 Union Club: Descriptions of the Union Club taken from Greg King, A Season of Splendor (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008).
2 “They light up and tell me a story”: “Women of Wall Street,” Museum of American Finance, June 2009.
3 “I know of no profession”: Lloyd R. Morris, Incredible New York: High Life and Low Life from 1850 to 1950 (New York: Random House, 1951).
4 no one could outshine: Mrs. Astor’s entertaining is well covered in Jerry Patterson, The First Four Hundred (New York: Rizzoli Press, 2000), and Homberger, Mrs. Astor’s New York.
5 “The highest luxury”: Henry James, The American Scene (1907; repr., New York: Penguin Classics, 1994).
6 “is not the place for a lady”: Henry Clews, Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street (New York: J. S. Ogilvie, 1901).
7 Instead, Hetty boarded: For information on boardinghouses, see Gunther Barth, City People (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Harriet Beecher Stowe, We and Our Neighbors (Buffalo, NY: J. B. Ford, 1875); Ross, Crusades and Crinolines; Wendy Gamber, The Boarding House (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
8 a young woman defended her residence: New York Times, August 6, 1908.
9 “She went for him like a tigress”: New York Times, July 1, 1888.
10 Hetty’s choice of Brooklyn: Bremer, Homes of the New World; see also Bird, Englishwoman in America.
11 “a kind of sleeping place”: John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens (New York: Dutton, 1990).
12 modern billionaire Alice Walton: “Alice’s Wonderland,” New Yorker, June 20, 2011.
CHAPTER 13: THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN
1 “interminable vistas”: Rudyard Kipling, American Notes (New York: Brown, 1899).
2 Teasing and practical jokes: In a telephone interview in June 2011, Lavinia Abel told me about the family’s love of teasing.
3 Relaxing in his office: Ned’s grandiose plans were reported in the New York Times, the New York Sun, and the Chicago Daily Tribune, among other newspapers. Hetty’s activities were frequently described in the Chicago Herald and Chicago Daily Tribune.
4 Not only was the city: Descriptions of Chicago in Lears, Rebirth of a Nation; Henry Smith, Chicago’s Great Century (Chicago: Consolidated Publishers, 1933); Bessie Pierce, As Others See Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
5 the town of Colehour: Chicago Tribune, December 31, 1890.
6 “Loans on Distressed Properties”: New York Times, December 24, 2008.
7 “the Rome of the Great West”: Lears, Rebirth of a Nation.
8 The fair brought to life: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1966).
9 Like Henry James’s character: Washington Square (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980).
10 Witty or not: The duties of debutantes of the period are portrayed in Maureen Montgomery, Displaying Women (New York: Routledge, 1998).
11 The Patriarchs’ Ball: A detailed description can be found in the New York Times, January 14, 1892.
12 “not unlike Dante’s description of Paradise”: Alexander Klein, The Empire City: A Treasury of New York (New York: Rinehart, 1955).
13 “the long cold agony”: Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (New York: Scribner, 1964), 78.
14 “If you die before the dinner”: Ward McAllister, Society as I Have Found It (New York: Cassell, 1890).
15 August in Newport: Gail MacColl and Carol Wallace give a description of the daily routine in Newport in To Marry an English Lord (New York: Workman, 1989).
16 “I want to say”: New York Tribune, December 31, 1894.
CHAPTER 14: TEXAS
1 wanted badly to outwit Huntington: Beffel/Marshall Papers, Wayne State University, describe Hetty Green’s dealings with Collis Huntington and the Texas railroads as well as Ned Green’s extensive activities in Texas.
2 “He is generous, though level-headed”: Dallas Morning News, October 17, 1897. The Dallas newspapers reported continuously on the activities of Ned Green.
CHAPTER 15: THE GLITTER OF GOLD
1 “mortgaged to the railways”: The Education of Henry Adams (New York: Modern Library, 1931).
2 With not enough gold: For descriptions of the financial panic of 1893, see Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons (New York: Mariner Books, 1962); Jett Lauck, The Causes of the Panic of 1893 (Boston: Mifflin, 1907); Kessner, Capital City; Douglas Steeples, Democracy in Desperation (New York: Greenwood Press, 1998); Alexander Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance (New York: Ayer, 1980); Beatty, Age of Betrayal; Thomas Kane, The Romance and Tragedy of Banking (Boston: Bankers Publishing, 1922).
3 The rich still imported: In The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1912), Thorstein Veblen explores the need of the rich to spend money.
4 “Everyone is in a blue fit”: Education of Henry Adams.
5 Referring to 2008: Conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin, August 2011, Easthampton, NY.
6 sold to a former adviser: Brooklyn Eagle, August 1896.
7 “Ex Judge Hilton”: New York Times, August 27, 1896.
8 an adult allegory: Hugh Rockoff, “The ‘Wizard of Oz’ as a Monetary Allegory,” Journal of Political Economy 98 (1990): 736–60. See also works by Professor Richard Sylla (New York University), Henry Littlefield, Gretchen Ritter, and Taylor Quentin.
CHAPTER 16: CRAZY AS A FOX
1 “folks can’t find me out”: The story of Hetty Green in Bellows Falls was published in the Chicago Daily Tribune.
2 “tall and stately” figure: Godey’s, November 1895.
3 The trustee Henry Barling: Accounts of the trial appeared in all the New York newspapers in 1895, including the New York Times, the New York Tribune, the New York World, the Sun, and the Brooklyn Eagle.
4 “She is the brightest woman”: New York Tribune, December 26, 1894.
5 “Because she devoted her surplus”: James Gerard, My First Eighty-Three Years in America (New York: Doubleday, 1951).
6 “Hetty Green has in secret”: Nichols, “Hetty Green.”
7 “For him, it is a vocation”: Sue Halpern, “Making It,” New York Review of Books, May 28, 2009.
CHAPTER 17: A NEW HETTY
1 “I only need $75”: Beffel/Marshall Papers, Wayne State University. The papers also include extensive information about Ned Green’s political activities.
2 after dinner she held court: Beatrice Fairfax, Ladies Now and Then (Boston: E. P. Dutton, 1944). The Brooklyn Eagle reported on Hetty Green’s comings and goings.
3 “We are all slaves”: Jay Gould, quoted in Homberger, Mrs. Astor’s New York.
4 In New York, she dined with friends: George A. Plimpton folders, Barnard College.
5 Hetty arranged dinner parties: Gerard, My First Eighty-Three Years.
6 “A woman hasn’t as many chances”: Women’s Home Companion, February 1990.
7 “Most women are afraid”: Hetty Green, article on women and investing, Success magazine, April 1901.
8 “She has reduced money-making”: Wisconsin Labor Advocate, December 10, 1886.
CHAPTER 18: FAMILY MATTERS
1 “A girl should be brought up”: Hodges, “Richest Woman in America.”
2 she had attended an auction: New York Herald, April 10, 1899.
3 “Hetty Green is smart”: New York Times, July 28, 1901.
CHAPTER 19: A COOL HEAD
1 The Spanish-American War: Describing America at the time of the Spanish-American War: Samuel Forman, Advanced American History (New York: Century, 1914); H. W. Brands, American Colossus (New York: Doubleday, 2010).
2 John Gates … led the merger mania: Describing the creation of trusts: Beatty, Age of Betrayal.
3 a prominent art collection: The S. D. Warren Collection. Coverage in the New York Times, January 10, 1903.
4 “I keep them just as I keep”: New York Times, November 5, 1905.
5 “The captains of industry”: Roosevelt, State of the Union speech, 1901. 193 “Great corporations exist”: Roosevelt, first annual message to Congress, December 3, 1901.
6 “shake the largest trusts and corporations”: Thomas Lawson, Frenzied Finance (New York: Ridgway-Thayer, 1905).
7 “Every girl should be taught”: Frank Carpenter interview, 1904.
8 “There is no reason why”: “Words of Wisdom from the Wealthiest Woman in America,” Women’s Home Companion, February 1900.
9 “I enjoy being in the thick of things”: Hetty Green, as told to Frank Carpenter.
10 “God gave me my money”: Quoted in Flynn, Men of Wealth.
CHAPTER 20: PANIC AGAIN
1 With the economy flourishing: Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance. In Fifth Avenue (San Diego: Harcourt, 1979), Kate Simon quotes Paul Bourget, a Frenchman who visited New York in 1895: “It is too evident that money cannot have much value here. There is too much of it. The interminable succession of luxurious mansions which line Fifth Avenue proclaim its mad abundance.… This avenue has visibly been willed and created by sheer force of millions, in a fever of land speculation, which has not left an inch of ground unoccupied.”
2 the cost of land skyrocketed: See “Land Values Always Increasing,” Moody’s, December 1906.
3 “If this condition of affairs”: New York Times, January 5, 1906.
4 “the solidest men in Wall Street”: New York World, February 17, 1908.
5 Opportunities emerged: Carol Ford, National Magazine, September 1905.
6 There, in the marble house: The description is by C. W. de Lyon Nichols in Business America. Nichols was an author, theologian, and observer of society.
7 “It had been a cardinal doctrine”: Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance.
8 J. P. Morgan took a sandwich: Article in the New York Times, May 12, 1907, on the lunch habits of leading businesspeople. “J. Pierpont Morgan eats his luncheon on his desk, and this luncheon consists of a single sandwich and a glass of water.” August Belmont had “a modest luncheon” in his private office. “William Schieffelin, the millionaire head of a drug trade in America, frequently takes from a little tin box in his desk drawer a soda cracker and a lump of chocolate and calls that luncheon.” As for Hetty Green, “the richest woman in the land goes regularly to a dairy lunch place in Broadway, just below Fulton Street, and her midday meal consists of a cup of custard and a glass of milk.”
9 “Mr. Roosevelt has not made good”: Town Topics, February 27, 1908.
10 The United States could continue to prosper: Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance.
11 “There’s one reason why”: Farm Journal, November 1908.
12 “We had a big financial crisis”: Paul Volcker made these comments in an interview with Charlie Rose in New York, September 2011, at a dinner in honor of the newly established Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.
CHAPTER 21: REMARKABLE CHANGES
1 “Anything, everything is possible”: James Rasenberger, America 1908 (New York: Scribner, 2007).
2 Newspapers reported talk of war: The Sun, June 14, 1908.
3 Henry James was entranced: James wrote about New York in The American Scene (1907).
4 H. G. Wells extolled: Bayrd Still, Mirror for Gotham (New York: Fordham University Press, 1994).
5 Another English author thrilled: Arnold Bennett, Your United States (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1912).
6 highest per capita income: Rasenberger, America 1908.
7 “I am glad Miss Gladys Vanderbilt”: Washington Times, October 12, 1907.
8 A scion of a real estate: Marion King, Books and People (New York: Macmillan, 1954).
9 The French Renaissance fortress: Curtis Gathje, At the Plaza (New York: Macmillan, 2000); Simon, Fifth Avenue; Eve Brown, The Plaza (New York: Meredith Press, 1967).
10 Financed in large part: Henry Clews, Twenty-eight Years in Wall Street.
11 “A woman has failed”: Rasenberger, America 1908.
12 she hired a clipping service: New York Daily Tribune, June 4, 1908.
13 “I’m back, Twink”: Washington Times, October 6, 1908.
CHAPTER 22: HOME
1 Ned left behind: Beffel/Marshall Papers, Wayne State University.
2 list of “Don’ts”: Nichols, “Hetty Green.”
3 not averse to something pretty: Ibid.
4 a wooden loft: Beffel/Marshall Papers, Wayne State University.
5 presidential Cabinet: McCall’s, July 1911.
6 million dollars’ worth of war bonds: Beffel/Marshall Papers, Wayne State University.
Bibliography
ARCHIVES
Beffel, John Nicholas. Papers. Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit.
Bullard, John M. “The Greens as I Knew Them.” John M. Bullard Papers. Harvard Law School Library, Cambridge.
Fravert, John B. Railroad Collection. University of Louisville Archives and Record Center.
Grinnell, Helen Lansing. Diary. New York Public Library.
Holbrook, Stewart Hall. Papers. Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries.
Howland, Emily. Family Papers. Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College.
Logan, Andy. Papers. New York Public Library.
Plimpton, George Arthur. Papers. Barnard College, New York.
Tailer, Edward N. Diaries. New-York Historical Society.
Wise, H. A. Letterbook #80, Box 32/22/1865. New-York Historical Society.
Heritage Auctions. School Book, 1850.
NEWSPAPERS
The Advertiser Journal
The Boston Evening Transcript
The Brooklyn Eagle
The Chicago Daily Tribune
The Deseret Evening News
The Hazel Green Herald
The Illustrated London News
The Jerseyman (Morristown, NJ)
The New Bedford Evening Standard
The New Bedford Newspaper
The New Bedford Standard Times
The New Orleans Bee (L’Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orléans)
The New York Daily Tribune
The New York Herald
The New York Times
The New York World
The North Eastern Reporter
The San Francisco Call
The St. Paul Daily Globe
The Sun (New York)
The Th
rice-a-Week-World
Town Topics: The Journal of Society
The Washington Times
JOURNAL AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES
“Are we a happy people?” Harper’s Magazine, January 1857, 207–11.
Cummings, Joseph E. “United States Government Bonds as Investments.” Annals of the American Academy of Political Social Science 87 (January 20, 1920): 158–67.
Ford, Carol. “Hetty Green: A Character Study.” National Magazine, September 1905.
Green, Hetty. “Why Women Are Not Money Makers.” Harper’s Bazaar, March 10, 1900.
Halpern, Sue. “Making It.” New York Review of Books, May 28, 2009.
Hamer, John H. “Money and the Moral Order in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century American Capitalism.” Anthropological Quarterly 71, no. 3 (July 1998): 138–49.
Heath, Kingston William. “The Howland Mill Village: A Missing Chapter in Model Worker’s Housing.” Old-Time New England 75 (1997): 64–111.
Hodges, Leigh Mitchell. “The Richest Woman in America: Mrs. Hetty Green as She Is Seen in Her Home and in the Business World.” Ladies’ Home Journal, June 1900.
Jepson, Jill. “Women’s Concerns: Twelve Women Entrepreneurs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century.” American University Studies, Series XXVII (“Feminist Studies”), Vol. 11.
Kramer, Rita. “Cathedrals of Commerce.” City Journal, spring 1996.
“Letters from New York.” Wisconsin Labor Advocate, December 10, 1886.
Meier, Paul, and Sandy Zabell. “Benjamin Peirce and the Howland Will.” Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 75, no. 371 (September 1980): 497–506.
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