Russell Sage Foundation facts for kids
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| Founded | 1907 |
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| Founder | Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage |
| Type | Private Foundation |
| Location |
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Key people
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President – Sheldon Danziger |
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Revenue (2016)
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$15,246,065 |
| Expenses (2016) | $14,187,024 |
| Endowment | $275 million (2015) |
The Russell Sage Foundation is an American non-profit group. It was started in 1907 by Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage to make "social and living conditions in the United States" better. It was named after her husband, Russell Sage, who had recently passed away.
The foundation works to improve how we study social problems. It helps us understand society better and find good solutions. They support scholars who visit and do research. They also publish books and a journal. The foundation gives money to researchers at other places. It also helps train new social scientists. Their main focus areas are: how people work, immigration, different ethnic groups, and social fairness in the U.S. They also study how people make economic choices.
Contents
History
The Russell Sage Foundation began in 1907. It received $10 million from Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, who was the wife of a rich railroad owner, Russell Sage. Mrs. Sage wanted the foundation to do many things. These included research, publishing, and helping charities. She also wanted it to support groups that were already helping people.
Early Years: Making a Difference
When it first started, the Foundation helped a lot with problems faced by poor and older people. It worked to make hospitals and prisons better. It also helped create "social work" as a new job in the early 1900s. The Foundation also helped with early changes in healthcare and city planning. It worked on rules for consumer credit and labor laws. It also helped with training nurses and setting up social security programs.
In 1907, the foundation paid for the Pittsburgh Survey. This was the first big study of how working-class people lived in a large U.S. city. The findings from this study helped change labor laws. They also helped end 12-hour workdays and 7-day workweeks for steel workers. During this time, the foundation supported many important women researchers. These included Mary van Kleeck and Lilian Brandt.
Between 1909 and 1922, the Foundation used a lot of its money to build Forest Hills Gardens. This was a planned community in Queens, New York. It was designed for working families. The goal was to show that a well-planned community could work well for people and be successful. But as New York City grew, housing prices there became too high for the families it was meant to help.
In 1922, the Foundation helped start the Regional Plan Association. This group worked to create a plan for how the New York area should grow in the future. The Foundation spent over $1 million on this plan. Researchers wrote 12 large books about it. They believed that growth needed to be managed well. This would help businesses grow and keep New York important around the world.
The Foundation also supported social activists like Mary van Kleeck. She led the Foundation's Department of Industrial Studies for 40 years. Her work made her a strong believer in social change.
Later Years: 1945-1980
After World War II, the Foundation focused on making social sciences stronger. They believed this would help create better social policies. They started programs to connect social scientists with decision-makers. These included people who made laws and healthcare providers. This work included studying "social indicators." These are facts and figures that measure how good life is for people.
In the 1950s, the Foundation supported research on how charities work. It also started the Foundation Center. This is a non-profit group that keeps information on organized charity work. It was also the first to publish The Foundation Directory. This book lists thousands of the largest foundations in the country. During this time, the foundation also received money from the Ford Foundation. This money helped them research how to use social sciences in real life.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Foundation looked into issues in medical ethics. This included patients' rights. They also studied how new technology allowed doctors to keep people alive longer. Another topic was using people in research studies. Books supported by the Foundation from this time include Bernard Barber's The Dying Patient (1970).
Modern Focus: 1980s to Today
The Foundation was important in starting the field of behavioral economics. This field combines ideas from psychology with economics. They launched a program in behavioral economics in 1986. Books they published on this topic include Quasi Rational Economics (1991).
In 1993, the Foundation created the Behavioral Economics Roundtable. This group of experts helped guide new projects in the field. Three members of this group later won the Nobel Prize in economics. These were George Akerlof, Daniel Kahneman, and Thomas Schelling.
The Foundation started new programs to study immigration. They also looked at the rise of economic inequality. This means the growing gap between rich and poor. Another focus was how different cultures interact in America. From 1992 to 2000, the Foundation worked with the Ford Foundation. They studied inequality in several U.S. cities. In 2000, they worked with the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). They produced a book called The American People: Census 2000.
From 2014 to 2016, the Foundation worked with other groups on research. These topics were related to their main interests. In 2015, the Foundation worked with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. They explored the social and economic effects of the Affordable Care Act. Also in 2015, the Foundation launched RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. This is a journal that publishes social science research.
Current Activities
Research Programs
The Foundation supports four main research programs:
- Future of Work: This looks at why jobs for lower-wage workers are changing. It also studies what happens because of these changes in the U.S. and other rich countries.
- Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration: This program studies how changes in the U.S. population affect society. It looks at how communities change and what it means to be American. This program started in 2015.
- Social, Political, and Economic Inequality: This program focuses on how growing economic inequality affects society in the U.S. It pays special attention to how political and education systems respond to these differences.
- Behavioral Economics: This program uses ideas from psychology and other social sciences. It helps us understand how people make economic choices.
The Foundation also supports special projects. These include studies on the Affordable Care Act and how people make decisions. They also look at immigration and how immigrants fit into society.
Books and Journals
The Foundation publishes books on many topics. They often focus on subjects related to their research programs. Some recent important books include:
- Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison by Bruce Western.
- The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood.
- The Asian American Achievement Paradox by Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou.
- Unequal Time: Gender, Class, and Family in Employment Schedules by Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel.
- Government-Citizen Disconnect by Suzanne Mettler.
The Foundation also publishes RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. This is a journal where experts review research before it is published. It is also available for free online. The Foundation also publishes the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology.
Visiting Scholars and Journalists
The Russell Sage Foundation has a center where Visiting Scholars can do their research and writing. Each year, they invite scholars to their New York City office. These scholars study topics in social and behavioral sciences. The Foundation especially likes groups of scholars who want to work together on a project.
In 2015, the Foundation started a Visiting Journalists program. This helps journalists do their own research on social, political, and economic conditions in the U.S. The Foundation also created the Margaret Olivia Sage Scholars program in 2015. This allows important social scientists to spend time at the Foundation.
Sometimes, the Foundation also accepts applications for short-term visits. These are for scholars doing research that fits the Foundation's main interests.
Robert K. Merton Scholar
- In 1990, Robert K. Merton became the first Foundation Scholar. This honored his long service as an advisor and mentor.
- In 2000, Nobel winner Robert M. Solow became the second Foundation Scholar. This was after Merton retired. In 2003, the position was renamed the Merton Scholar to honor him.
Archives
The Foundation's old records and documents are kept at the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
Headquarters Buildings
Former Gramercy Location
When the Foundation first started, it tried to find offices in a building on Park Avenue South. But it was full. So, the new foundation used several different places nearby. In 1912, Margaret Sage and Robert W. DeForest decided to build a main office for the Foundation. This building would also be a memorial to her late husband. They hired architect Grosvenor Atterbury to design it. He had also designed the Forest Hills Gardens project for the Foundation. They bought land at 120 East 22nd Street and Lexington Avenue. This was close to other charity buildings. The building was built between 1912 and 1913. It was nine stories tall, and another floor was added later. A 15-story extension was added between 1930 and 1931.
Atterbury designed the building to look like an old Italian palace. Because it was both an office and a memorial, the building was built with expensive materials. For example, the elevators used rare sandstone. In 1922-1923, sculptures were added to the second floor. These showed the Foundation's goals and work.
The Foundation let other social-service groups use space in the main building for free. These included groups like the Family Welfare Association of America. Space in the 22nd Street extension was rented out. The New York School of Social Work was the main renter there.
The Foundation sold the building in 1949. It was bought by the Archdiocese of New York. They used it as the main office for Catholic Charities. It was sold again in 1975 and changed into apartments. It is now called Sage House. The building was named a New York City landmark in 2000.
Current Location
Since 1981, the Foundation has been in a building at 112 East 64th Street. This building was designed by Philip Johnson. It was built between 1958 and 1960 for the Asia Society and Japan Society. The building is in the Upper East Side Historic District.
