Helen Clay Frick: Bittersweet Heiress

by Martha Frick Symington Sanger

In 1919, at the age of thirty-one, Helen Clay Frick inherited $38 million, becoming the richest single woman in America. These riches, however, came at a price. Helen's tumultuous early life was shaped by her father's infamy as a union strikebreaker and the ensuing attempt on his life, her mother's debilitating depression, and the death of her older sister and newborn brother about a year apart. Despite these events, Helen built a luminous legacy...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822943417
• ISBN13: 9780822943419
• Release Date: December 2007
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 9.5" x 11.6"

Customer Reviews

helen Clay Frick, Bittersweet Heiress

[[ASIN:0822943417 Helen Clay Frick: Bittersweet Heiress] Any one who likes History of Pittsburgh will find this book full of interesting little known facts. Easy read. Much information about the Frick Museum in N. Y.]

Superb Biography: A Class Act

I bought and read "Helen Clay Frick-Bittersweet Heiress" because I greatly enjoyed the author's previous work published in 1998, "Henry Clay Frick-An Intimate Portrait".These books are large,"Helen" is 9"x12", and they are published on very heavy glossy paper. This enhances the family photographs as well as selected works of art that fit in with the biography. Do not let the size of either book or their many pictures of art treasures frighten you away if you are looking for a biography. Both books are outstanding biographies, filled with money,violence,greed,contention,love,charity,a whisp of incest,treachery,and eccentric behavior.Henry Frick's involvement with the 19th Century steel industry and attendant labor problems is told well in both books."Helen" is written through the eyes of Helen and continues the family biography after the death of Henry in 1919.The historical scope of "Helen" is from the beginning of Henry's business career in 1875 to Helen's death in 1984. The author exceeds the expected in every respect with both of the two books that I have mentioned. The books are lovingly written with much interesting detail about Henry and Helen ,including a generous assortment of warts and foibles.The author has been courageous on a number of her forays into her family's history...she motored through some rather tricky areas about friends and family members that she will no doubt encounter from time to time.The art work and other pictures were a priceless addition to the narrative and were introduced in exactly the right place in each book.Reading "Helen Clay Frick" is a poignant journey about a young woman that began life as a loving daughter and care giver and ended it as a very wealthy but eccentric and demanding woman.