Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/584

Rh Was born March 20, 1820, in Chester, Massachusetts. She was the wife of Rev. James Mather, and of Puritan ancestry. She was at one time principal of the Ladies' Department and professor of modern languages in Western University, Leoni, Michigan. After the close of the war and before the United States troops were withdrawn from the South, she went among the freedmen as a missionary and brought to bear all her powers upon this work, sacrificing her health and investing all of her available means in the work of establishing a normal and training school for the colored youth in Camden, South Carolina. Her interest in this work brought about the necessity of her becoming a public speaker in order to arouse the interest of others. She organized the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and through her efforts a model home and training school was established in Camden, South Carolina, and the school is sustained by this society. She is the author of several works, among them "Young Life," "A Hidden Treasure" and "Little Jack Fee!"

Mrs. Sage, before her marriage to Russell Sage, on November 24, 1869, at Watervliet, New York, was Miss Margaret Olivia Slocum. She was born in Syracuse, N. Y., September 8, 1828, and was the daughter of Joseph and Margaret Pierson Jermain Slocum. Mrs. Sage has always devoted her life and means to charity. She has never had any inclination or taken any part in the social life of New York, preferring to do her part toward the cause of humanity. She was president of the Emma Willard Association; is a member of the Society of Mayflower descendants and Colonial Dames. Since the death of her husband, in 1906, she has given one million dollars to the Emma Willard Seminary, of Troy, N. Y.; one million to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; $115,000 to a public school at Sag Harbor, L. I.; ten millions to be known as the Sage Foundation for Social Betterment; $350,000 to the Y. M. C. A. of New York; $150,000 to American Seamen's Friend Society; $150,000 to Northfield (Massachusetts) Seminary; $300,000 to Sage Institute of Pathology of City Hospital on Blackwell's Isand; $250,000 to a home for Indigent Women; $100,000 to