Henrietta "Hetty" Green (1834-1916) from National Women's History Museum.

She had a net worth of 100 million dollars when she died in 1916; a figure equal to $2.5 billion today.

See also Hetty Green entry on Wikipedia


The Witch of Wall Street from the blog, Today I Found Out

But Was She Really the Witch of Wall Street, Library of Congress

See also, Henrietta Howland Green: Another Look at the Witch of Wall Street

The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age. Janet Wallach, Anchor Books, 2013

Go here for Janet Wallach's talk about the book from BookTV


The illustration from 1906 to the right from the Library of Congress shows eight men and one woman sitting and standing around a table, each is identified with a Cabinet position: 

• J.P. Morgan as "Sec'y Navy", 
• Thomas W. Lawson as "Sec'y War", 
• Thomas F. Ryan as "Att'y Gen'l", 
• James J. Hill as "Sec'y Int.", 
• James H. Hyde as "Sec'y Com. and Lab.", 
• Russell Sage as "Sec'y Agric", 
• Henrietta "Hetty" Green as "Post Mistress Gen'l",
• Andrew Carnegie as "Sec'y State", and 
• John D. Rockefeller as "Sec'y Treas"; 

The figures are sitting on the table is a statue labeled "Golden Calf" and hanging on the wall are portraits of "Midas" and "Croesus". On the far left is a ticker tape machine.

 

16th Amendment to the Constitution: Federal Income Tax (1913)


For more on wealth, income and power in American society, see

The Richest People in History Up Until the Industrial Revolution