Abigail Smith Adams, "Stock-Jobber"

Born in 1744, Abigail Smith married John Adams in 1764. Since John was often away on state business, Abigail was left alone to manage the farm and handle the family’s affairs. Despite instructions from her husband to invest in land, Abigail realized she could earn a higher rate of return on their money by investing in US government bonds.

Although all of Abigail’s property legally belonged to John under New England’s coverture laws, she set aside “pin money” to buy the bonds, often through an uncle who acted as a trustee for her.

Abigail’s “stock-jobbing” activities were among the few sources of contention between husband and wife. Eventually, however, she managed to convince him that the investments would benefit the family, and went on to earn profits that far exceeded those they would have made had John been making all of their financial decisions.

Born: Nov. 11, 1744, Weymouth, Mass.

Died: Oct. 28, 1818, Quincy, Mass.

Harper's Weekly, 1872

Victoria Woodhull, "Spiritualist, Suffragette, Broker"

Born into poverty in 1838, Victoria Woodhull went on to open the first female-owned brokerage on Wall Street, fight for women’s rights, start a newspaper, and run for President of the United States.

After moving to New York in 1868, Woodhull became Cornelius Vanderbilt’s clairvoyant, helping him pick stocks using her abilities as a spiritualist. Learning from this experience, she formed a brokerage company at which she earned over $700,000 (or over $12 million in today’s terms).

An outspoken social reformer, Woodhull became the first woman in the U.S. to run for president in 1872, with famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass as her running mate. In that same year, however, after exposing an affair between a well-known minister and one of his congregants in the newspaper that she founded with her sister, Woodhull was arrested for sending “obscene materials” through the mail, a federal offense.

After a protracted legal struggle which drained her mentally and financially, she left for England in 1876, where she married her third husband and lived out the remainder of her life quietly.

Born: Sept. 23, 1838, Homer, Ohio

Died: June 9, 1927, Bredon, England

Bain News Service

Hetty Green, "Tycoon"

Hetty Howland Robinson Green was born in 1834 to a wealthy family. As a child, she read the financial pages to her father, and by the time she was 14, she stated that she knew “as much about finance as any man.”

Unlike many women in her day, she managed her own money, and turned her comfortable inheritance into a fortune. Green was famous for her business acumen, her tireless work ethic, and her miserliness — in fact, she was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “World’s Greatest Miser.”

As one obituary for Green noted, however, many of her personality traits would have been considered unremarkable if they had been found in a man.

Green’s winning business strategy was straightforward: invest conservatively, have enough cash reserved to ride out any market turmoil, and only loan money, never borrow. Green had two children. She trained her son, Ned, to take over the family’s business affairs, while keeping her daughter, Sylvia, nearby in order to fend off potential suitors whom she feared were only after her money.

Born: Nov. 21, 1834, New Bedford, Mass.

Died: July 3, 1916, New York City

Museum of American Finance

Isabel Benham, "Madam Railroad"

When Isabel Benham attended Bryn Mawr, a women’s college, in the late 1920s, economics courses were not offered at all. In fact, upon hearing of Benham’s desire to study economics and work on Wall Street, a dean of the college advised her to enroll in typing school. Benham, however, insisted that the school offer economics, and she became one of only five women in her class to graduate with a degree in that field in 1931.

With the Great Depression and her gender working against her, Benham persisted in her efforts to work on Wall Street, initially supporting herself by selling magazine subscriptions. She eventually landed a job with RW Pressprich as a bond statistician.

Working for years for a boss whom she said “made life difficult,” Benham went on to become one of the most distinguished railroad analysts on Wall Street and the first woman to be named partner at a Wall Street bond house.

Born: Not available

Died: Not available

Photo courtesy Siebertnet.com

Muriel Siebert, "First Woman of Finance"

In 1967, Muriel “Mickie” Siebert became the first woman to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. The lone woman among 1,365 men, Siebert had struggled to purchase the seat, having been turned down by nine prospective sponsors before finding the required two sponsors to endorse her application.

In 1975, Siebert & Co. became the nation’s first discount brokerage. In 1977, Siebert became the first female Superintendant of Banks for New York State, overseeing all of the New York banks, which had assets of approximately $500 billion. Not a single bank failed during her tenure.

Siebert remains president of Siebert & Co., frequently providing analysis and commenting on Wall Street to the media. She is also heavily involved in philanthropic work, particularly projects that advocate on behalf of women and minorities in the financial industry, as well as those that teach financial literacy.

Born: Sept. 11, 1932, Cleveland, Ohio