Russell Sage: When he passed away in July 1906, Russell Sage left his wife a fortune estimated at more than $75 million (equivalent to over $1.5 billion in 2007). Soon after, Mrs. Sage began receiving many individual “begging letters” – which were said to have been so numerous (at one point, 900 per day) that they had to be removed to a warehouse for storage. Months after her husband’s death, she issued a personal statement to dissuade the outpouring of letters she received, comically writing, “To read them all would involve the total loss of eyesight, which a woman at 77 needs to preserve.” Her public statement was prompted by the sincere desire to avoid awakening false hopes in the many deserving requestors.

Although infamous for his frugality, Mr. Sage’s decision to bequeath the bulk of his fortune to Mrs. Sage had a major impact on social welfare reform. The New York Times noted that in leaving the majority of his fortune to his wife, who was a philanthropist and of age, Mr. Sage ensured that it would go toward charitable causes:

Dr. Carl Schmuck, the family physician, made the announcement. He said: “In leaving his fortune to Mrs. Sage Mr. Sage has practically left it all to charity. How could a woman of her advanced years spend a thousandth part of it? What could she do but give it away? Mr. Sage knew that his wife made a study of philanthropy, and that she would distribute his money wisely.”

And indeed she did. By the turn of the century, traditional charity work, which was characterized as sentimental giving to individuals, was frowned upon. The fledgling field of social work galvanized progressive reformers who believed that philanthropy would be more beneficial if it were directed at causes that had been studied by social science research. Mrs. Sage was of this mind, preferring to strike at the root causes of social ills. Among the many institutions that benefited from her philanthropy, none would carry on this philosophy better than the institution she named in memory of her husband.

A century ago, Mrs. Sage created the Russell Sage Foundation, which she dedicated to:

the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States. The means to that end will include research, publication, education, the establishment and maintenance of charitable and beneficial activities, agencies, and institutions, and the aid of any such activities, agencies, and institutions already established.

At the close of the Foundation’s first meeting on April 19, 1907, Mrs. Sage said, “I am nearly eighty years old and I feel as though I were just beginning to live.”

Robert W. de Forest, her lawyer and leader of the New York Charity Organization Society, was perhaps most influential in molding the Foundation in its infancy. Olivia was, however, very supportive of the advancement of women. The Foundation had more female trustees than any other foundation of its time, including her friend Helen Gould, Gertrude Rice and Louisa Schuyler, with herself as president. Among the female researchers who worked at the Russell Sage Foundation were Dr. Crystal Eastman (social activist and founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union), Margaret Byington, Florence Kelley (labor leader and one-time resident of the Hull House settlement) and Elizabeth Beardsley Butler. Some women served as head of departments, including Mary Richmond, Mary van Kleeck, Pauline Goldmark and Joanna Colcord (member of editorial board of the social work journal The Survey).

The Russell Sage Foundation’s seminal role in the social welfare movement and its instrumentality in legislative reforms cannot be overestimated. Its research effected legislative changes in labor specifically as well as society in general. Mrs. Sage’s biographer, Ruth Crocker, writes, “Through her $10 million donation to the Russell Sage Foundation … Sage philanthropy contributed to the development of welfare thought, created the modern profession of social work, and funded Progressive reform in housing, public health, child welfare, urban and regional planning, and industrial relations.” Upon her death, Mrs. Sage left an addition $5.4 million to the Foundation; it was her largest donation to any single institution.