Russell Sage

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Russell Risley Sage (August 4, 1816 – July 22, 1906) was an American financier, railroad executive and politician from New York. He became one of the wealthiest Americans of his time, partly through trading stock options with Jay Gould.

Early life: He was born in Verona, New York. He left school to work on a farm, then helped in his brother’s Troy, New York, grocery. He later ran a Troy grocery and a wholesale business. He served in local government in Troy as an alderman (1841–1848) and was treasurer of Rensselaer County.

Politics: Sage was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Whig and served from 1853 to 1857. He sat on the Ways and Means Committee and was the first to push for the government to purchase Mount Vernon.

Finance and railroads: In New York City he became a major financier. He helped develop the stock options market and created strategies like spreads and straddles; he was nicknamed Old Straddle and called the Father of Puts and Calls. He joined the New York Stock Exchange in 1874 and invested heavily in railroads, often with Gould. He held leadership roles in several railroad companies and served as a director for others such as Western Union and the Union Pacific.

Personal life: Sage married Marie-Henrie Winne in 1840; they had no children. She died in 1867. He married Olivia Slocum in 1869. Sage died in 1906 in New York City, leaving about $70 million to Olivia.

Legacy: Olivia Sage used the fortune for philanthropy, founding the Russell Sage Foundation in 1907 and Russell Sage College in 1916, and supporting Emma Willard School and RPI.