Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage

Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage (born Sept. 8, 1828, Syracuse, N.Y., U.S.—died Nov. 4, 1918, New York, N.Y.) was an American philanthropist whose exceptional generosity in her lifetime, especially to numerous educational and social causes, is continued by the Russell Sage Foundation, which she established.

Margaret Slocum graduated from the Troy (New York) Female Seminary (now the Emma Willard School) in 1847, and over the next 22 years she taught school occasionally as her health permitted. In 1869 she married the widower Russell B. Sage, a businessman who had built a fortune from wholesale groceries, banking, and railroad finance. Russell Sage’s underwriting of the education of 40 Native American children, his gift of a dormitory to the Troy Female Seminary, and his gift of $50,000 to the Woman’s Hospital of New York were generally attributed to her influence, as he was not otherwise known for philanthropy. At his death in 1906 his wife was left with an estate valued in excess of $63 million.

Margaret Sage quickly set about becoming one of the foremost philanthropists of the day, demonstrating her long-held belief that women were the moral superiors of men and were primarily responsible for the moral progress of civilization. In 1907 she established the Russell Sage Foundation with an endowment of $10 million. The foundation’s broadly stated purpose was to foster improved social and living conditions in the United States, and the trustees were given virtually unrestricted authority in the use of its money. At the time, her gift was the largest single act of philanthropy in history. In 1910 she built a new campus for the Emma Willard School, and in 1916, acting with the help of Eliza Kellas, she converted the old campus into Russell Sage College, devoted to the vocational education of women; the college was eventually the recipient of $1 million in gifts from her. She gave other gifts to Harvard and Yale universities, the Young Men’s Christian Association and the Young Women’s Christian Association, the American Seaman’s Friend Society, various museums, and the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology of the New York City Hospital. The will she left on her death in 1918 made many major bequests. Her total philanthropy in life and death was estimated at $75 million to $80 million.