Ladies of the ticker
Subtitle: women and Wall Street from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression
By: George Robb
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780252082719; 9780252041174
Subjects: Women in finance; Women capitalists and financiers; Finance; History
Description: Long overlooked in histories of finance, women played an essential role in areas such as banking and the stock market during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet their presence sparked ongoing controversy. Hetty Green's golden touch brought her millions, but she outraged critics with her rejection of domesticity. Progressives like Victoria Woodhull, meanwhile, saw financial acumen as more important for women than the vote. George Robb's pioneering study explores the financial methods, accomplishments, and careers of three generations of women. Plumbing sources from stock brokers' ledgers to media coverage, Robb reveals the many ways women invested their capital while exploring their differing sources of information, approaches to finance, interactions with markets, and levels of expertise. He also rediscovers the forgotten women bankers, brokers, and speculators who blazed new trails--and sparked public outcries over women's unsuitability for the predatory rough-and-tumble of market capitalism. --
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: opportunities and obstacles; title: The vortex of speculation: picturing women investors; title: Engendering finance: women and Wall Street; title: Lambs to be fleeced and petticoated sharks: women and financial fraud; title: Turning Wall Street inside out: Victoria Woodhull and the feminist debate on finance; title: Call me Madam Ishmael: Hetty Green and the female tycoon; title: Epilogue and conclusion.