Gloria Steinem

Notable people · Journalism · Women'S Rights · Politics · Literature

Gloria Steinem

Toledo-born journalist and co-founder of Ms. magazine who for six decades was the best-known public face of the American women's movement.

Born March 25, 1934, Toledo
Died September 2, 2026, New York City, NY

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: March 25, 1934, Toledo (Lucas County) source
Died: September 2, 2026, New York City, NY source
Also known as: Gloria Steinem
Known as: Journalism, Women'S Rights, Politics, Literature

Life story

Gloria Steinem was born in Toledo in 1934, the granddaughter of Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, a suffragist who in 1904 became the first woman elected to public office in Toledo. Her early years were spent partly on the road with her father, a travelling antiques dealer, so she did not attend school full time until she was about 12; after her parents separated in 1944 she lived in Toledo with her mother, who was chronically ill, and attended Waite High School before finishing high school in Washington, D.C., in 1952. After Smith College (1956) and two years in India, she became a freelance journalist in New York, made her name in 1963 with an undercover exposé of a Playboy Club, helped found New York magazine, and in 1971-1972 co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus and Ms. magazine. She campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment and reproductive rights, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 and gave the keynote at the 2017 Women's March. Toledo feminists named the Steinem Sisters Collection, now at the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, for her, and she died at home in New York on 2 September 2026, aged 92.

Ohio ties

Toledo (1934-c. 1951)
birthplace; childhood partly on the road with her father; lived with her mother in Toledo after 1944 Lucas County · source
Toledo, Waite High School, 301 Morrison Drive (to c. 1951)
attended (1951 yearbook) before finishing high school in Washington, D.C. Lucas County · source
Toledo, Main Library, Toledo Lucas County Public Library (2014-present)
Steinem Sisters Collection, a feminist lending library founded in her honour Lucas County · source

Timeline

1904 Her grandmother Pauline Perlmutter Steinem was elected to the Toledo Board of Education, the first woman elected to any public office in Toledo. source
1934 Born in Toledo on 25 March to Ruth Nuneviller Steinem and Leo Steinem, a travelling antiques dealer. source
1944 Her parents separated; her father went to California and she stayed in Toledo with her mother, whose long illness Steinem later called pivotal to her understanding of injustice to women. source
1951 Appeared in the yearbook of Morrison R. Waite High School in East Toledo. source
1952 Graduated from Western High School in Washington, D.C., while living with her older sister Susanne. source
1956 Graduated from Smith College in government, then spent two years in India on a Chester Bowles fellowship. source
1963 Published 'A Bunny's Tale' in Show magazine after working undercover at Hugh Hefner's New York Playboy Club. source
1969 Covered an abortion speak-out in New York that she later called the beginning of her activism. source
1971 Helped found the National Women's Political Caucus. source
1972 Co-founded Ms. magazine and, at the National Press Club, called Richard Nixon 'the most sexually insecure chief of state since Napoleon'. source
2000 Married David Bale at 66; he died in 2003. source
2013 Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama on 20 November. source
2014 For her 80th birthday, the Steinem Sisters Collective of Toledo-area feminists opened the Steinem Sisters' Library and Resource Center at People Called Women, a Toledo feminist bookstore. source
2015 Published the memoir My Life on the Road. source
2017 Gave the keynote at the Women's March in Washington on 21 January; the same year the Toledo collection was donated to the Toledo Lucas County Public Library as the Steinem Sisters Collection. source
2026 Died at her home in New York City on 2 September, aged 92; her last book, An Unexpected Life, was published on 22 September. source

Stories

A grandmother on the Toledo school board

Steinem's feminism had Toledo roots a generation before she was born. Her paternal grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, a Polish-born Jewish immigrant, chaired the educational committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association and in 1904 became the first woman elected to the Toledo Board of Education, and the first woman elected to any public office in the city. She also led a movement for vocational education, and before the Second World War paid to bring relatives out of Germany. She died in 1940, when Gloria was five.

Source

A Toledo childhood

Steinem's father ran a roaming antiques business from a house trailer, and she spent much of her early childhood on the road, not attending regular school; she later said she simply read everything she could find. Her mother, Ruth, had suffered a breakdown before Gloria was born and was in and out of sanatoriums. When her parents separated in 1944, ten-year-old Gloria stayed in Toledo with her mother and largely looked after her. Steinem later said the indifference of doctors toward her mother, and her mother's lost career, first showed her how women were denied equality.

Source

The Steinem Sisters

In 2014 a grassroots group of Toledo-area feminists, the Steinem Sisters Collective, marked her 80th birthday by starting a lending library of feminist books at People Called Women, a feminist bookstore owned by one of its founders. When the store was sold in 2017, the collection went to the Toledo Lucas County Public Library as the Steinem Sisters Collection, at the Main Library downtown. By her death in 2026 it held nearly 1,500 titles, from Ms. magazine to a play about her life, and the group ran book clubs, talking circles and birthday events for her.

Source

Named for Gloria Steinem

Steinem Sisters Collection (feminist lending collection), Toledo Lucas County Public Library (Toledo, Lucas County) source

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

1 Waite High School, which Steinem attended
301 Morrison Drive, East Toledo Lucas County · source
Steinem Sisters Collection, Main Library, Toledo Lucas County Public Library
Downtown Toledo Lucas County · source

Ohio places

Where Gloria Steinem was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Born: Toledo, Lucas County Toledo · Lucas County
Connected: Toledo, Lucas County Toledo · Lucas County
Connected: Toledo, Lucas County Toledo · Lucas County
Connected: Toledo, Lucas County Toledo · Lucas County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Gloria Steinem, and what the record shows.

Often said Steinem was a CIA agent.

The record In 1959-1960 she directed the Independent Research Service, which sent American students to Soviet-sponsored youth festivals and was funded through foundations secretly financed by the CIA. She acknowledged the funding and maintained that the CIA never tried to change the organization's policies; there is no evidence she was a CIA officer. source

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

'Gloria Steinem, trailblazing journalist and activist, dies at 92', NPR, 3 September 2026 2026, NPR
AP obituary as run by Cleveland 19 / 13abc: 'Toledo-born feminist icon Gloria Steinem dies' 2026, Associated Press / Gray Media
'Thank you, Gloria Steinem: Toledo Native and Feminist Icon', Toledo Lucas County Public Library 2026, Toledo Lucas County Public Library
'Ms. Steinem's CIA Connection', declassified CIA reading-room document (1975) 1975, Central Intelligence Agency FOIA reading room

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

Portraits of Gloria Steinem and Jane Galvin-Lewis appear above the title in shades of purple. The date of the ...
Public domain
Gloria Steinem's 1951 High School yearbook photo
Public domain
Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : Wilhelmina Druckerpr...
CC0
Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : Wilhelmina Druckerpr...
CC0
Gloria Steinem at a women's conference held at the LBJ Library on Nov. 9, 1975.
Public domain
Mahalo @GloriaSteinem & @WomenBelong advocates for a great conversation on women & #ImmigrationReform
Public domain
I agree w/ @GloriaSteinem that #ImmigrationReform is a women’s issue. We won’t give up fight for #CIR
Public domain
Gloria Steinem delivering a speech at the Women's March on Washington.
Public domain
On Wednesday, November 6, 2019, Friends of the LBJ Library hosted a conversation with Gloria Steinem, who disc...
Public domain
On Wednesday, November 6, 2019, Friends of the LBJ Library hosted a conversation with Gloria Steinem, who disc...
Public domain
On Wednesday, November 6, 2019, Friends of the LBJ Library hosted a conversation with Gloria Steinem, who disc...
Public domain
(L-R) Mark Updegrove and Gloria Steinem. On Wednesday, November 6, 2019, Friends of the LBJ Library hosted a c...
Public domain