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Hetty Green

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Entrepreneur

The Resume

    (November 21, 1834-July 3, 1916)
    Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts
    Birth name was Henrietta Howland Robinson
    Inherited $7.5 million (1864)
    Was worth $100-200 million at her death ($2-4 billion in 2007 dollars)
    Richest woman in the world at the time of her death
    Nicknamed the 'Witch of Wall Street'

Why she might be annoying:

    When her aunt left $2 million to charity, she sued to get the will overturned.
    She left her husband, Edward Green, when he lost his fortune and expected her to bail him out.
    She was an extreme miser who refused to undergo a hernia operation because it would cost $150.
    After her son broke his leg, her attempts to get him into a free clinic delayed treatment for so long that gangrene set in and the leg had to be amputated.

Why she might not be annoying:

    At age six, she was reading the financial papers to her father and at age 13, she was the family bookkeeper.
    She was a shrewd investor who was one of the few women to make a fortune during the Gilded Age.
    She reconciled with her husband and nursed him during the years before his death from chronic kidney disease (1902).
    During the Panic of 1907, she loaned New York $1.1 million to keep the city afloat.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 15 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 9 Votes: 77.78% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 17 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 17 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 61 Votes: 83.61% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 56 Votes: 67.86% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 31 Votes: 67.74% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 64 Votes: 68.75% Annoying