Helen Clay Frick

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 through her lifelong commitment to social welfare, the environment, and a supreme devotion to the visual arts. Helen's philanthropy touched the lives of thousands. Her contributions included a vacation home for young female textile workers, two wildlife preserves, one a public wilderness park, a Victorian-era house museum, a pre-Civil War historic Mennonite village, a university fine arts department, two art history libraries, and the purchase of many significant works of art for her private collection, the Frick Collection in New York, the