Sylvia Porter

In 1942, the directors of the New York Stock Exchange met to discuss a problem. The exchange—its air charged with testosterone, its floor scuffed by the frantic paces of men racing one another for shares of the American dream—was off-limits to women. This, it was agreed, was how it should be. However, it had recently become public knowledge that one of New York’s most prolific and respected financial writers, S. F. Porter, was a woman. If Porter trained her eye on the all-male stock exchange, th