Ohio-born feminist icon dies

One of the most influential figures in the modern women’s movement got her start in Ohio.

Gloria Steinem, the pioneering journalist, author and activist who became one of the country’s most recognizable advocates for women’s equality, died Wednesday at her home in New York City. She was 92.

Her foundation said Steinem died peacefully surrounded by loved ones. An official cause of death has not been released, though the Associated Press reported she had been in declining health.

Long before she co-founded Ms. magazine, helped organize the National Women’s Political Caucus and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Steinem was a Toledoan.

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She was born Gloria Marie Steinem in Toledo on March 25, 1934. Her father, Leo, was a traveling antiques dealer. The family spent much of her early childhood on the road. After her parents separated, Steinem remained in Toledo with her mother, Ruth, and attended Waite High School before eventually moving to Washington, D.C.

Steinem later recalled finding refuge in an East Toledo library, where books opened up a world beyond the difficult circumstances of her childhood.

Her family’s connection to journalism and women’s advocacy in Toledo went back another generation.

Steinem’s paternal grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, was a prominent Ohio suffragist who became the first woman elected to the Toledo Board of Education in 1904. Her mother, Ruth, also worked as a journalist for The Toledo Blade and had been the first woman to edit the University of Toledo’s student newspaper.

Steinem eventually left Ohio for Smith College and built a journalism and activism career that made her an international figure. Her 1963 undercover exposé on working conditions at the Playboy Club drew national attention, and by the 1970s she had emerged as one of the defining voices of the women’s movement.

Toledo continued to celebrate its connection to Steinem decades after she left.

In 2014, local feminists established the Steinem Sisters Library and Resource Center in honor of her 80th birthday. The collection later moved to the Toledo Lucas County Public Library and has grown to include hundreds of books focused on feminism and women’s history.

Steinem was still looking ahead shortly before her death. Her final memoir, An Unexpected Life, is scheduled to be published Sept. 22.

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