Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage

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(Margaret) Olivia Slocum Sage (Mrs. Russell Sage) (8 September 1828-4 November 1918) was an American philanthropist. Upon the death of her husband she received a fortune estimated at more than $50,000,000, to be used as she saw fit. She was born in Syracuse, New York and graduated from the Troy Female Seminary (later called the Emma Willard School) in 1847.

Her greatest single benefaction was the gift of $10,000,000 in 1907 to establish the Russell Sage Foundation. In 1908 she donated $650,000 to Yale University, enabling the purchase of the Hillhouse property for Yale's expansion. Three years later, Sage gave $300,000 to Cornell University for the construction of a women's dormitory, Risley Hall, named after her mother-in-law. In 1912, she acquired Marsh Island in the Gulf of Mexico and dedicated it as a home for wild birds. In 1916, she founded Russell Sage College in Troy, New York. Later, in 1919 she gave $2,750,000 for the development of the Russell Sage Foundation Homes, a suburban community at Forest Hills Gardens, Long Island. In addition she gave extensively to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the Emma Willard School. Up to 1915, the sum total of Mrs. Sage's gifts surpassed $23,000,000.

Olivia Sage also organized the effort to fund and build the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor in honor of her grandfather, Major John Jermain, who fought in the American Revolution. The library was designed by Augustus N. Allen and presented as a gift to the people of Sag Harbor in 1910. The property was bought at a cost of $10,000, and was directly across from Mrs. Sage's then summer home on Main Street. At that time, it was the highest price ever paid for a piece of real estate in Sag Harbor.

[edit] References

  • Crocker, Ruth, Mrs. Russell Sage: Women's Activism and Philanthropy in Gilded Age and Progressive Era America, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 2006, ISBN 0253347122

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