Ella Sachs Plotz (November 10, 1888 – April 13, 1922) was an American philanthropist, for whom the Ella Sachs Plotz Foundation for the Advancement of Scientific Investigation was named after.

Early life

Ella Sachs was born in New York City, the daughter of banker

Samuel Sachs Samuel Sachs (; July 28, 1851 – March 2, 1935) was an American investment banker. Early life Samuel Sachs was born on July 28, 1851 in Maryland, the son of Sophie (née Baer) and Joseph Sachs, both Jewish immigrants from Bavaria, Germany. He h ...

and Louisa Goldman Sachs. The extended

Goldman–Sachs family The Goldman–Sachs family is a family of Ashkenazi Jewish descent known for the leading investment bank Goldman Sachs. Marcus Goldman, while attending classes at the synagogue in Würzburg, met Joseph Sachs, who would become his lifelong friend. ...

was Jewish. Her father and maternal grandfather

Marcus Goldman Marcus Goldman (born Marcus Goldmann; December 9, 1821 – July 20, 1904) was a Jewish American investment banker, businessman, and financier. He was the founder of Goldman Sachs, which has since become one of the world's largest investment ba ...

founded

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...

, an investment banking firm. Her eldest brother

Paul J. Sachs Paul Joseph Sachs (November 24, 1878 – February 18, 1965) was an American investor, businessman and museum director. Sachs served as associate director of the Fogg Art Museum and as a partner in the financial firm Goldman Sachs. He is recogniz ...

was a professor of fine arts, and associate director of the

Fogg Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Philanthropy and personal life

Sachs was elected to the board of directors of the

National Urban League The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...

in 1915. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

she was a canteen worker in France, Italy, and England with the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

. She was a trustee of

Fisk University Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1930, Fisk was the first Africa ...

. Ella Sachs married physician and bacteriologist Henry (Harry) Plotz in 1920. Judge

Benjamin Cardozo Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...

officiated at their wedding. She died in childbirth in 1922, aged 33 years, in Paris.

Legacy

The Ella Sachs Plotz Foundation made hundreds of small cash grants to individual scientists worldwide, "toward the solution of problems in medicine and surgery or in branches of science bearing on medicine and surgery". Beneficiaries included biochemist Hans Krebs, neurosurgeon

Roy Glenwood Spurling Roy Glenwood "Glen" Spurling (September 6, 1894 in Centralia, Missouri – February 7, 1968 in La Jolla, California) was an American neurosurgeon remembered for describing Spurling's test. Biography R. Glen Spurling studied at the Univers ...

, and pharmacologist

Henry Gray Barbour Henry Gray Barbour (28 March 1886 – 23 September 1943) was an American physiologist and pharmacologist who served as a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Yale University. He studied water exchange and metabolism associated with thermal ...

. The foundation's papers are in the Harvard Art Museums Archives, part of the Papers of Paul J. Sachs. Plotz left the National Urban League $5000 in her will, and the Urban League created an Ella Sachs Plotz Fellowship program in her memory, open to Black students pursuing social work degrees. Recipients of the Plotz Fellowship included educator

Ethel McGhee Davis Ethel Elizabeth McGhee Davis (November 30, 1899July 13, 1990) was an American educator, social worker, and college administrator. She served as the student adviser (1928–1931) and as the Dean of Women (1931–1932) for Spelman College in Atla ...

and economist

Abram Lincoln Harris Abram Lincoln Harris, Jr. (January 17, 1899 – November 6, 1963) was an American economist, academic, anthropologist and a social critic of the condition of blacks in the United States. Considered by many as the first African American to achiev ...

. In 1924, Fisk University established an Ella Sachs Plotz Professorship, endowed by a memorial gift from her brother.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plotz, Ella Sachs 1888 births 1922 deaths Deaths in childbirth American women philanthropists American women in World War I