Hetty

When J. P. Morgan called a meeting of New York’s financial leaders after the stock market crash of 1907, Hetty Green was the only woman in the room. The Guinness Book of World Records memorialized her as the World’s Greatest Miser, and, indeed, this unlikely robber baron — who parlayed a comfortable inheritance into a fortune that was worth about 1.6 billion in today’s dollars — was frugal to a fault. But in an age when women weren’t even allowed to vote, never mind concern themselves with interest rates, she lived by her own rules. Hetty reexamines her life and legacy, giving us, at long last, a splendidly “nuanced portrait” (Newsweek) of one of the greatest — and most eccentric — financiers in American history.

Join the Fairhaven Historical Society as we welcome author Charles Slack as he discusses his book "Hetty." This event is free, but donations are greatly…