The Richest Woman in America Had Two Children. Neither Left an Heir: Hetty Green
American Magnates
2,566 views
Hetty Green was the richest woman in America, and for three decades the press called her the Witch of Wall Street. She heated a can of oatmeal on a bank radiator for lunch and moved house rather than pay a two-dollar dog license fee — not from poverty, but from a lifelong instinct to keep everything she owned out of anyone else's reach. It worked for eighty-one years, against a husband, a federal court, and every tax assessor in two states. What it could not do was leave either of her two children anything to hand down. This is the story of the fortune Hetty Green spent a lifetime defending — and the cabinet drawer in a Fifth Avenue apartment where, in 1951, the bill for that defense finally came due.
This single-subject documentary draws on federal court records, contemporary newspapers, and the archives of the New Bedford and Greenwich historical societies to trace three generations of one American fortune.
━━━ 🎬 CHAPTERS ━━━ 00:00 – Cold Open 00:01:00 – Act 1: New Bedford Money 00:10:00 – Act 2: The Woman in the Lobby 00:21:00 – Act 3: The Children in the Rented Room 00:32:00 – Act 4: What the Papers Built 00:40:00 – Act 5: What They Did With It 00:48:00 – Quiet Landing
━━━ ✅ CREDIBILITY ━━━ Every claim in this video is drawn from the sources listed below. We encourage you to read them.
━━━ 📚 SOURCES ━━━ TIER S — PRIMARY
Robinson v. Mandell, 20 F. Cas. 1027 (C.C.D. Mass. 1868) — federal court record, Howland will trial
"The Richest Woman in America," San Francisco Call, March 26, 1899 — Chronicling America, Library of Congress
"The World's Richest Two Dozen," Seattle Republican, June 2, 1905 — Chronicling America, LOC
"Alleged Will Forgery Attempt," Salt Lake Herald-Republican, September 18, 1910 — Chronicling America, LOC
"Mrs. Hetty Green Dies," obituary, The New York Times, July 4, 1916
Text of Hetty Green's will, The New York Times, July 23, 1916
Will and estate record of H. Sylvia A. H. G. Wilks (1951) — via Greenwich Historical Society & New Bedford institutional records
TIER A — ACADEMIC
Charles Slack, Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2004)
Janet Wallach, The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2012)
Boyden Sparkes & Samuel Taylor Moore, The Witch of Wall Street: Hetty Green (Doubleday, Doran, 1935)
Paul Meier & Sandy Zabell, "Benjamin Peirce and the Howland Will," Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. 75 (1980)
"Green, Edward Howland Robinson," Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association
Library of Congress, "Hetty Green, the 'Witch of Wall Street,' was Born," This Month in Business History
Library of Congress, "But Was She Really the 'Witch of Wall Street'?", Inside Adams blog
TIER B — JOURNALISM / INSTITUTIONAL
"Sylvia Wilks: Greenwich Heiress, Recluse & Philanthropist," Greenwich Historical Society
"Hetty Green" & "Sylvia Ann Howland Green Wilks," Lighting the Way: Historic Women of the SouthCoast (New Bedford)
Review of Wallach's The Richest Woman in America, The Washington Post, October 20, 2012
"Then Again: Hetty Green and her money weren't to be parted," VTDigger, April 30, 2017
"The Woman Who Loved Money," New York Social Diary
"Gifts from the Grave," Philanthropy Roundtable magazine
━━━ ABOUT AMERICAN MAGNATES ━━━ American Magnates tells the private cost behind America's great Gilded Age fortunes — the families who built the country's steel, its oil, and its museums, and what it took from the people who loved them. New documentaries most weeks.
Have a family or a fortune you think we should look into? Tell us in the comments — we read every one.
━━━ DISCLAIMER ━━━ This video is a historical documentary based on publicly available sources, including biographies, archival documents, interviews, and journalistic accounts. All claims are drawn from cited sources listed above. Where accounts differ, this is noted in the narration. This content is for educational and historical purposes. It is not intended to defame, harass, or invade the privacy of any person living or deceased.
#AmericanMagnates #HettyGreen #WitchOfWallStreet #GildedAge #HistoryDocumentary
1 Comments
The Richest Woman in America Had Two Children. Neither Left an Heir: Hetty Green
American Magnates
2,566 views
Hetty Green was the richest woman in America, and for three decades the press called her the Witch of Wall Street. She heated a can of oatmeal on a bank radiator for lunch and moved house rather than pay a two-dollar dog license fee — not from poverty, but from a lifelong instinct to keep everything she owned out of anyone else's reach. It worked for eighty-one years, against a husband, a federal court, and every tax assessor in two states. What it could not do was leave either of her two children anything to hand down. This is the story of the fortune Hetty Green spent a lifetime defending — and the cabinet drawer in a Fifth Avenue apartment where, in 1951, the bill for that defense finally came due.
This single-subject documentary draws on federal court records, contemporary newspapers, and the archives of the New Bedford and Greenwich historical societies to trace three generations of one American fortune.
━━━ 🎬 CHAPTERS ━━━ 00:00 – Cold Open 00:01:00 – Act 1: New Bedford Money 00:10:00 – Act 2: The Woman in the Lobby 00:21:00 – Act 3: The Children in the Rented Room 00:32:00 – Act 4: What the Papers Built 00:40:00 – Act 5: What They Did With It 00:48:00 – Quiet Landing
━━━ ✅ CREDIBILITY ━━━ Every claim in this video is drawn from the sources listed below. We encourage you to read them.
━━━ 📚 SOURCES ━━━ TIER S — PRIMARY
Robinson v. Mandell, 20 F. Cas. 1027 (C.C.D. Mass. 1868) — federal court record, Howland will trial
"The Richest Woman in America," San Francisco Call, March 26, 1899 — Chronicling America, Library of Congress
"The World's Richest Two Dozen," Seattle Republican, June 2, 1905 — Chronicling America, LOC
"Alleged Will Forgery Attempt," Salt Lake Herald-Republican, September 18, 1910 — Chronicling America, LOC
"Mrs. Hetty Green Dies," obituary, The New York Times, July 4, 1916
Text of Hetty Green's will, The New York Times, July 23, 1916
Will and estate record of H. Sylvia A. H. G. Wilks (1951) — via Greenwich Historical Society & New Bedford institutional records
TIER A — ACADEMIC
Charles Slack, Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2004)
Janet Wallach, The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2012)
Boyden Sparkes & Samuel Taylor Moore, The Witch of Wall Street: Hetty Green (Doubleday, Doran, 1935)
Paul Meier & Sandy Zabell, "Benjamin Peirce and the Howland Will," Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. 75 (1980)
"Green, Edward Howland Robinson," Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association
Library of Congress, "Hetty Green, the 'Witch of Wall Street,' was Born," This Month in Business History
Library of Congress, "But Was She Really the 'Witch of Wall Street'?", Inside Adams blog
TIER B — JOURNALISM / INSTITUTIONAL
"Sylvia Wilks: Greenwich Heiress, Recluse & Philanthropist," Greenwich Historical Society
"Hetty Green" & "Sylvia Ann Howland Green Wilks," Lighting the Way: Historic Women of the SouthCoast (New Bedford)
Review of Wallach's The Richest Woman in America, The Washington Post, October 20, 2012
"Then Again: Hetty Green and her money weren't to be parted," VTDigger, April 30, 2017
"The Woman Who Loved Money," New York Social Diary
"Gifts from the Grave," Philanthropy Roundtable magazine
━━━ ABOUT AMERICAN MAGNATES ━━━ American Magnates tells the private cost behind America's great Gilded Age fortunes — the families who built the country's steel, its oil, and its museums, and what it took from the people who loved them. New documentaries most weeks.
Have a family or a fortune you think we should look into? Tell us in the comments — we read every one.
━━━ DISCLAIMER ━━━ This video is a historical documentary based on publicly available sources, including biographies, archival documents, interviews, and journalistic accounts. All claims are drawn from cited sources listed above. Where accounts differ, this is noted in the narration. This content is for educational and historical purposes. It is not intended to defame, harass, or invade the privacy of any person living or deceased.
#AmericanMagnates #HettyGreen #WitchOfWallStreet #GildedAge #HistoryDocumentary
Love how our heroine learned from her grandfather, took investing seriously, and was able to help some of our country’s biggest financiers and institutions during some of our country ’s toughest times— and that she was willing to.
Am so glad her children had unusual , enriching ( not wealthy as kids lives), admired their mother and were proud of her knowledge and expertise. And am particularly pleased , for them, that they developed interesting lives, exploring and learning about things which interested them personally and, in the end, contributing the family fortune to a wide range of philanthropic causes, most, I believe, which continue and thrive today. ❤