Hetty Green - the Richest, Meanest Woman in the World

Henrietta (Hetty) Green was a very spoilt, only child. She was born in Massachusetts, USA, in 1835. Her father was a millionaire businessman. Her mother was often ill, and so from the age of two her father took her with him to work and taught her about stocks and shares. At the age of six she started reading the daily financial newspapers and she opened her own bank account.

Her father died when she was 21 and she inherited $7.5 million. She went to New York and invested on Wall Street. Hetty saved every penny, eating in the cheapest restaurants for 15 cents. She became one of the richest and most hated women in the world. She was called “The Witch of Wall Street”. At 33 she married Edward Green, a multimillionaire, and had two children, Ned and Sylvia.

Hetty`s meanness was legendary. She always argued about prices in shops. She walked to the local grocery store to buy broken cookies (biscuits) which were much cheaper, and to get a free bone for her much-loved dog, Dewey. Once she lost a two-cent stamp and spent the night looking for it. She never bought clothes and always wore the same long, ragged black skirt. Worst of all, when her son Ned fell and injured his knee, she refused to pay for a doctor and spent hours looking for free medical help. In the end Ned`s leg was amputated.

When she died on 1916 she left her children $100 million (worth $9.3 billion today). Her daughter built a hospital with her money.