Russell Sage Foundation

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| caption1 = In 1907 Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage started the Russell Sage Foundation...

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| caption2 = ...with the fortune she inherited from her late husband, Russell Sage

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The Russell Sage Foundation was established in 1907 for "the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States" by a gift of $10 million from Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage (1828–1918), widow of railroad magnate and financier Russell Sage.{{cite web | url=http://diglib.auburn.edu/collections/sage/essays.html | title=Margaret Olivia Slocum (Mrs. Russell) Sage (1828-1918): Founder of the Russell Sage Foundation | website=Auburn University Libraries | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160324224755/http://diglib.auburn.edu/collections/sage/essays.html | archive-date=March 24, 2016 | url-status=live }} Mrs. Sage directed the foundation to pursue its mission through a broad set of activities, including "research, publication, education, the establishment and maintenance of charitable or benevolent activities, agencies and institutions, and the aid of any such activities, agencies, or institutions already in existence."{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/about/history | title=History of the Russell Sage Foundation | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010174211/http://www.russellsage.org/about/history | archive-date=October 10, 2018 | url-status=live }}Glenn et al. (1947), p.xvii

Soon after its establishment, the Foundation played a pioneering role in dealing with problems of the poor and the elderly, in efforts to improve hospital and prison conditions, and in the development of social work as a new profession in the early 20th century.Stanley Wenocur and Michael Reisch, From Charity to Enterprise: The Development of American Social Work in a Market Economy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989) The Foundation was also responsible for early reforms in health care, city planning, consumer credit, labor law, the training of nurses, and social security programs.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/u4/Brief%20History%20of%20RSF.pdf | title=Celebrating 100 Years | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624003420/http://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/u4/Brief%20History%20of%20RSF.pdf | archive-date=June 24, 2016 | url-status=live }}{{primary source inline|date=June 2016}}

In 1907, the foundation funded the Pittsburgh Survey,"The Pittsburgh Survey," by Paul Kellogg in Charities and the Commons, 1909 the first systematic effort to survey working-class conditions in a large U.S. city. Considered a major Progressive Era achievement, the findings inspired labor reforms and helped end twelve-hour days and seven-day weeks for steel workers.{{Citation

| last = Overland

| first = Martha Ann

| title = To Fight Poverty, A Fund Changes Tactics But Sticks To Its Mission

| newspaper = The Chronicle of Philanthropy

| date = January 13, 2011

| url = http://philanthropy.com/article/A-100-Year-Old-Fund-Changes/125855/

| access-date = June 30, 2011

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110927102740/http://philanthropy.com/article/A-100-Year-Old-Fund-Changes/125855/

| archive-date = September 27, 2011

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}} During this period, the foundation supported a number of prominent female researchers, such as Mary van Kleeck and Lilian Brandt.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cCHLa6mBmj8C&pg=PA63|title=The Road Not Taken: A History of Radical Social Work in the United States|last1=Reisch|first1=Michael|last2=Andrews|first2=Janice|date=2002|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9780415933995|pages=61–65|language=en}}

Between 1909 and 1922, the Foundation spent nearly a sixth of its capital to build Forest Hills Gardens, a model suburban community for working families designed by architect Frederick Law Olmsted in Queens, New York. The aim was to demonstrate the economic and social viability of an intelligently planned suburban community.Glenn et al. (1947), p.49 The first lots sold for $800, and a new suburb began thriving by 1917. But with the growth of the New York metro area, housing prices in the new development soon soared beyond the reach of the families they were intended for.

In 1922, the Foundation helped launch the Regional Plan Association to research, write and publish a plan to guide the future development of the New York metropolitan region. In its first 40 years, the Foundation spent more than $1 million on the Regional Survey and Plan. Researchers completed 12 massive volumes as part of the effort, with the first being published in 1928–29.{{cite book |editor1-first=Harold |editor1-last=Keele |others=Joseph C. Kiger |title=Foundations |edition=1984 |year=1984 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Conn. |page=376 }} The RPA was not opposed to the growth of the area and its population, but believed that for the development to be efficient and orderly, it had to be properly managed; only in this way could businesses continue to grow and the city maintain its global influence.{{cite unbound|pages=187-88}}

The Foundation also provided support for social feminists such as Mary van Kleeck, founder of the International Industrial Relations Institute.{{cite book|first1=Guy|last1=Alvon|editor1-last=Nelson|editor1-first=Daniel|title=A Mental Revolution: Scientific Management since Taylor|date=1992|publisher=Ohio State University Press|location=Columbus Ohio|url=https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Complete%20PDFs/Nelson%20Mental/06.pdf}} Van Kleeck headed up the Foundation's Department of Industrial Studies for four decades, becoming a passionate socialist as a result of her work and research.{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Abby-van-Kleeck|title=Mary Abby Van Kleeck {{!}} American social reformer|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=September 5, 2019}}

Since World War II, the Foundation has devoted its efforts to strengthening the social sciences as a means of achieving more informed and rational social policy. It launched a variety of programs to draw the social sciences closer to decision-makers in other professions, from policymakers to health care providers. This initiative included funds for research on "social indicators", a collection of data that measure the quality of life."Social indicators" on the Russell Sage Foundation website

Mary Van Kleeck, who headed the foundation in the late 1940s, was also a member of the American Labor Party. She served on a committee for the Progressive Party in 1948.

{{cite journal

| first = Alan

| last = Wolfe

| title = The Withering Away of the American Labor Party

| journal = The Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries

| publisher = Journal of Rutgers University Libraries

| url = http://jrul.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/jrul/article/view/1483

| page = 49

| date = 1968

| volume = 31

| issue = 2

| doi = 10.14713/jrul.v31i2.1483

| access-date = July 13, 2017| doi-access = free

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In the 1950s, the Foundation supported research on the practice and aims of philanthropy. It established the Foundation Center, a non-profit that maintains data on organized philanthropy. It was also the first to publish The Foundation Directory, a comprehensive listing of the nation's several thousand largest foundations.{{cite web | url=http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/ | title=90% of U.S. Foundations don't have websites | website=Foundation Directory Online | access-date=October 10, 2018 }} During this decade, the foundation also received money from the Ford Foundation ($554,000) to support research in the "practical utilization of the behavioral sciences".{{Cite book|title=The Ford Foundation Annual Report|publisher=The Ford Foundation|year=1957|pages=78}}

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Foundation turned to exploring issues in medical ethics, including patients' rights, the rationale of extreme measures to sustain life that were possible with new technology, and the use of human subjects in research. Foundation-supported books from this period include Bernard Barber's Drugs and Society (1967) and The Dying Patient (1970).{{Cite web|url=https://www.russellsage.org/publications/dying-patient|title=The Dying Patient {{!}} Russell Sage Foundation|website=www.russellsage.org|access-date=March 11, 2016}}

The Foundation was an early force in the development of behavioral economics,{{Citation

| last = Heukelom

| first = Floris

| title = A Sense of Mission: The Alfred P. Sloan and Russell Sage Foundations' Behavioral Economics Program, 1984-1992

| journal = Forthcoming, Science in Context

| year = 2011|ssrn=1814927}} launching the Behavioral Economics program in 1986 with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/research/behavioral-economics | title=Behavioral Economics | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 }} Books on behavioral economics published by Russell Sage include Quasi Rational Economics (1991){{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/publications/quasi-rational-economics-1 | title=Quasi Rational Economics | last=Thaler | first=Richard H. | date=January 1994 | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010174257/http://www.russellsage.org/publications/quasi-rational-economics-1 | archive-date=October 10, 2018 | url-status=live }} and Advances in Behavioral Finance (1993).{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/publications/advances-behavioral-finance | title=Advances in Behavioral Finance | last=Thaler | first=Richard H. | date=August 1993 | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010174331/http://www.russellsage.org/publications/advances-behavioral-finance | archive-date=October 10, 2018 | url-status=live }}

In 1993, the Foundation also established the Behavioral Economics Roundtable, a group of behavioral economists elected by grantees in the program and charged to design initiatives to advance the field. Three charter members of the Roundtable subsequently received the Nobel Prize in economics: George Akerlof, Daniel Kahneman, and Thomas Schelling.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}

The Foundation launched new programs to study immigration, the rise of economic inequality, and contact among cultures within the American population. Between 1992 and 2000, the Foundation worked with the Ford Foundation to conduct a Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/research/multi-city-study-urban-inequality | title=Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010135004/http://www.russellsage.org/research/multi-city-study-urban-inequality | archive-date=October 10, 2018 | url-status=live }} In 2000, the Foundation partnered with the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) to produce The American People: Census 2000, edited by Reynolds Farley of the University of Michigan and John Haaga of PRB.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/publications/american-people | title=The American People | last=Farley | first=Reynolds | date=September 2005 | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010174320/http://www.russellsage.org/publications/american-people | archive-date=October 10, 2018 | url-status=live }}

From 2014 to 2016, the Foundation entered into research collaborations with a number of other foundations on a variety of topics related to its core interests. Co-funders include the Carnegie Corporation; the William T. Grant Foundation; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the MacArthur Foundation; the Spencer Foundation; and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. In 2015 the Foundation partnered with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on an initiative exploring the social, economic and political effects of the Affordable Care Act.{{Cite web|url=http://www.russellsage.org/research/co-funded-projects|title=Co-Funded Research {{!}} Russell Sage Foundation|website=www.russellsage.org|access-date=March 11, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160310095942/http://www.russellsage.org/research/co-funded-projects|archive-date=March 10, 2016|url-status=live}} Also in 2015, the Foundation launched RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal of social science research.{{Cite web|url=http://www.rsfjournal.org/|title=RSF Journal|website=www.rsfjournal.org|access-date=March 11, 2016}}

The Foundation supports four principal research programs:

• Future of Work, concerned principally with the causes and consequences of changes in the quality of low-wage work in the United States and other advanced economies.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/research/future-work | title=Future of Work | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010174410/http://www.russellsage.org/research/future-work | archive-date=October 10, 2018 | url-status=live }}
• Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration concerned with the social, economic, and political effects of the changing racial and ethnic composition of the U.S. population, including the transformation of communities and ideas about what it means to be American. This program was developed in 2015 to replace two prior programs, Immigration and Cultural Contact.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/research/race-ethnicity-immigration | title=Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010174425/http://www.russellsage.org/research/race-ethnicity-immigration | archive-date=October 10, 2018 | url-status=live }}
• Social, Political, and Economic Inequality, focused on the social effects of rising economic inequality in the U.S., with particular attention to the ways in which the political and educational systems have responded to growing economic disparities.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/research/social-political-and-economic-inequality | title=Social, Political, and Economic Inequality | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329183753/http://www.russellsage.org/research/social-political-and-economic-inequality | archive-date=March 29, 2019 | url-status=live }}
• Behavioral Economics, which incorporates the insights of psychology and other social sciences into the study of economic behavior.

In addition the Foundation also supports special initiatives on the social, economic and political effects of the Affordable Care Act, Computational Social Science, Decision Making and Human Behavior in Context, Immigration and Immigrant Integration, Integrating Biology and Social Science Knowledge, Non-Standard Work, and an Early Career Behavioral Economics Conference.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/special-initiatives | title=Special Initiatives | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=July 2, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190702130540/http://www.russellsage.org/special-initiatives | archive-date=July 2, 2019 | url-status=live }}File:ASA conference 2008 - 07.JPG

The Foundation publishes books on a variety of subjects, with particular emphasis on work related to its programs. Notable recent publications include Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison by Bruce Western, winner of the 2019 Outstanding Book Award from the Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section of the American Sociological Association and winner of the 2018 Choice Outstanding Academic Title;{{Cite web|url=http://www.russellsage.org/publications/homeward|title=Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison{{!}} Russell Sage Foundation|website=www.russellsage.org|access-date=July 2, 2019}} The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood, for which authors Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle, and Linda Olson won the 2016 Grawemeyer Award in Education;{{Cite web|url=http://grawemeyer.org/alexander-olson-and-entwisle-win-education-award-for-the-long-shadow/|title=Grawemeyer Awards {{!}} Alexander, Entwisle and Olson win education award for "The Long Shadow"|website=grawemeyer.org|access-date=March 11, 2016}} The Asian American Achievement Paradox by Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou, winner of three awards from the American Sociological Association and winner of the 2017 Association for Asian American Studies Award for Best Book in the Social Sciences;{{Cite web|url=http://www.russellsage.org/asian-american-achievement-paradox|title=The Asian-American Achievement Paradox {{!}} Russell Sage Foundation|website=www.russellsage.org|access-date=July 2, 2019}} Unequal Time: Gender, Class, and Family in Employment Schedules, by Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel, winner of three awards from the American Sociological Association;{{Cite web|url=https://www.russellsage.org/publications/unequal-time|title=Unequal Time {{!}} Russell Sage Foundation|website=www.russellsage.org|access-date=July 2, 2019}} and the Government-Citizen Disconnect by Suzanne Mettler, winner of the Alexander L. George Award from the International Society of Political Psychology.{{Cite web|url=http://www.russellsage.org/publications/government-citizen-disconnect|title=The Government-Citizen Disconnect {{!}} Russell Sage Foundation|website=www.russellsage.org|access-date=July 2, 2019}}

The Foundation also publishes RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal of social science research.

The Foundation publishes the American Sociological Association’s distinguished Rose Series in Sociology. Its publications are distributed by the Chicago Distribution Center.{{Cite web| title = Publishers served by the Chicago Distribution Center| work = University of Chicago Press| access-date = September 12, 2017| url = http://press.uchicago.edu/cdc/publishers.html| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170912144425/http://press.uchicago.edu/cdc/publishers.html| archive-date = September 12, 2017| url-status = live}}

The Russell Sage Foundation has established a center where Visiting Scholars can pursue their writing and research.{{cite web | url=http://www.russellsage.org/about/what-we-do/visiting-scholars-program | title=Visiting Scholars Program | website=Russell Sage Foundation | access-date=October 10, 2018 }} Each year, the Foundation invites a number of scholars to its New York City headquarters to investigate topics in social and behavioral sciences. The Foundation particularly welcomes groups of scholars who wish to collaborate on a specific project during their residence at Russell Sage. Typically Visiting Scholars work on projects related to the Foundation's current programs.

In 2015, the Foundation established a Visiting Journalists program to support journalists undertaking original research on social, political, and economic conditions in the United States.

The Foundation also established the Margaret Olivia Sage Scholars program, which provides the opportunity for distinguished social scientists to spend brief periods in residence at the Russell Sage Foundation, in 2015.

On an occasional basis, the Foundation considers applications for short-term fellowships by scholars who are conducting research relevant to the Foundation's priority areas through its Visiting Researchers program.

• In 1990, Robert K. Merton became the first Foundation Scholar at Russell Sage, recognizing his long and invaluable service as an adviser to the administration and a mentor to other visiting scholars.
• In 2000, Nobelist Robert M. Solow became the second Foundation Scholar, following Merton's retirement. In 2003, the position was renamed the Merton Scholar in Merton's honor.

The Foundation's archives are located in the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York.{{cite web | url=http://rockarch.org/ | title=If we assist the highest forms of education – in whatever field – we secure the widest influence in enlarging the boundaries of human knowledge. | website=Rockefeller Archive Center | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181020021005/http://rockarch.org/ | archive-date=October 20, 2018 | url-status=live }}

File:Russell Sage Foundation Building.jpg in Manhattan, New York City]]

When the Foundation was formed, it attempted to locate its offices in the United Charities Building on Park Avenue South and East 22nd Street in Manhattan, but was unable to do so as the building was fully rented; instead, the new foundation spread out to a number of locations in the area. In 1912, Margaret Sage and Robert W. DeForest decided to construct a headquarters building for the Foundation which would also serve as a memorial to her late husband. They engaged Beaux-Arts architect Grosvenor Atterbury, who had designed the Forest Hills Gardens model housing project for the Foundation in 1908, to design the building, and purchased property at 120 East 22nd Street at the corner of Lexington Avenue, just down the street from both United Charities Building and the Church Missions House of the Episcopal Church, and a short block from Gramercy Park. The building, which was originally nine stories before a penthouse was added in the 1920s, was constructed between 1912 and 1913 and altered in 1922–1923. A fifteen-story extension on East 22nd, which Atterbury also designed, connected to the original building with a five-story "hyphen", was added between 1930 and 1931.{{cite web | url=http://www.preserve2.org/gramercy/proposes/ext/ension/122_130e22.htm | title=Proposed Historic District Extension | date=August 31, 1998 | website=Preserve & Protect | access-date=October 10, 2018 }}{{efn|The 5-story connector building was necessitated by a covenant to the deed for the site, which was sold to the Foundation by the Gramercy Park Hotel. The intention was to preserve access to sunlight for the hotel's north-facing rooms.}}

File:Russell Sage Foundation Headquarters.jpg

Atterbury's design took the form of a Renaissance Florentine palazzo. Because it was both headquarters for the Foundation and a physical memorial for Sage, the building was more opulently constructed than would generally be the case for a charity. Atterbury utilized expensive materials in the interior, such as rare Kingwood sandstone in the elevators. The 1922-1923 alteration added second floor sculptural panels by Rene Paul Chambellan illustrating the foundation's ideals, goals and deeds.

The Foundation made available space in the main building, at no charge, to other social-service organizations, such as the Family Welfare Association of America, the American Association of Social Workers and the Library of Social Work, which took up the top two floors of the main building. Space in the 22nd Street extension was rented out, and the New York School of Social Work was the primary tenant.

The Foundation sold the building in 1949 to the Archdiocese of New York which used it as the headquarters of Catholic Charities, and it was sold again in 1975, after which it was converted to apartments; it is now called Sage House. The building was designated a New York City landmark in 2000,{{cite nycland}}, p.86 and is part of a proposed extension to the Gramercy Park Historic District.{{cite web | url=http://www.preserve2.org/gramercy/proposes/ext/ension.htm | title=Proposed Gramercy Park Historic District Extension | date=August 31, 1998 | website=Preserve & Protect | access-date=October 10, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170153/http://www.preserve2.org/gramercy/proposes/ext/ension.htm | archive-date=March 3, 2016 | url-status=live }}

Since 1981, the Foundation has been headquartered in a Philip Johnson-designed International Style building at 112 East 64th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, built in 1958-1960 for the Asia Society and Japan Society. The building is in the Upper East Side Historic District.{{cite nycland|page=155}}{{cite AIA4|page=391}}

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{{reflist}}

• Crocker, Ruth (2006). Mrs. Russell Sage: Women's Activism and Philanthropy in Gilded Age and Progressive Era America. Indiana University Press.
• {{cite book |last= Glenn |first= John M. |author2=Brandt, Lilian|author3=Andrews, F. Emerson|title=Russell Sage Foundation, 1907-1946 |url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.156668 |publisher=Russell Sage Foundation |year= 1947}}
• Heukelom, Floris (2015). Behavioral Economics: A History. Cambridge University Press.

• Anderson, Elisabeth. "Experts, ideas, and policy change: the Russell Sage Foundation and small loan reform, 1909–1941." Theory and Society 37.3 (2008): 271–310.
• Breen, William J. "Foundations, statistics, and state-building: Leonard P. Ayres, the Russell Sage Foundation, and US government statistics in the First World War." Business History Review 68.4 (1994): 451–482. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3117195 online]
• Brown, Carol. "Sexism and the Russell Sage Foundation." Feminist Studies 1.1 (1972): 25–44. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3180105 online]
• Glenn, John, Lillian Brandt, and F. Emerson Andrews. Russell Sage Foundation 1907-1946 (2 vol, Russell Sage Foundation, 1948) a major scholarly history
• Hammack, David C., and Stanton Wheeler, eds. Social science in the making: Essays on the Russell Sage Foundation, 1907-1972 (Russell Sage Foundation, 1995).

• Odencrantz, Louise Christine. Industrial Conditions in Springfield, Illinois: A Survey by the Committee on Women's Work and the Department of Surveys and Exhibits, Russell Sage Foundation (Russell Sage Foundation, 1916). [https://books.google.com/books?id=DBMvAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR7 online]

{{commons category}}

• [http://www.russellsage.org/ Official website]
• [http://www.aliceneel.com/gallery/?mode=display&decade=3&painting=9 Investigation of Poverty, Russell Sage Foundation], 1933 painting by Alice Neel
• [http://www.rockarch.org/collections/nonrockorgs/sage.php Russell Sage Foundation Archives]
• {{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Russell Sage Foundation|short=x}}

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Category:1907 establishments in New York (state)

Category:New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan

Category:Non-profit organizations based in New York City

Category:Organizations established in 1907

Category:Political and economic research foundations based in the United States

Category:Progressive Era in the United States

Category:Research institutes in New York (state)

Category:Social science research institutes