Pauline Perlmutter Steinem (August 4, 1864 – January 5, 1940) was a Jewish American suffragist born in Poland. In 1904, she became the first woman to be elected to the Board of Education in Toledo, Ohio, as well as to any public office there.
Additionally, just before World War II began, she helped send as many European relatives as she could to Palestine to escape the Holocaust. She was also the grandmother of feminist Gloria Steinem.
Early life Pauline Perlmutter was born in Radziejow in Poland in 1864 (according to her tombstone; some sources give 1863 or 1866 as the year), the daughter of Reform Jewish Russian emigrants Hayman Hirsch Perlmutter, a cantor, and Bertha Slisower Perlmutter. She was raised in Bavaria, attending a teacher training program there.Gloria Steinem, "Pauline Perlmutter Steinem" Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia (March 2009).
Career In 1914, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem wrote: "People say: 'Women cannot succeed in certain fields.' How do we know what women can do, when we have never yet allowed them to try? No man knows what woman would do, if she were free to develop the powers latent within her, nor does she herself know as yet."
In education Steinem moved to the US state of Ohio as a young wife and mother. Her teacher training in Bavaria informed a lifetime of activism for education.
She was the first woman to serve on the Toledo Board of Education; when she was elected in 1904, she became the first woman to hold public office in Toledo,Jacob Rader Marcus, The American Jewish Woman, 1654-1980 (KTAV Publishing 1981): 152. and possibly the first Jewish woman to hold elected public office in the United States. She was elected on a coalition ticket along with socialists and anarchists."Pauline Pearlmutter Steinem", Her Hat Was In the Ring: U. S. Women Who Ran for Political Office Before 1920.
She founded a public vocational school,"Mrs. Pauline Steinem Discusses 'The Toledo Idea'" Pittsburgh Daily Post (May 16, 1909): 36. via Newspapers.com the Macomber Vocational High School,Patricia Cronin Marcello, Gloria Steinem: A Biography (Greenwood Publishing 2004): 3-5. and she worked for juvenile court reform in Ohio. She was also appointed to the board of trustees for the Toledo Public Library.Report of the Toledo Public Library (1910 and 1911): 39."Women Who Are Doing Things" Detroit Free Press (April 3, 1910): 61. via Newspapers.com
In Jewish organizations She served as the chair of the Toledo chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women, and was national chair of that organization's Sabbath School committee. She was also president of the Hebrew Associated Charities and Loan Association, a mutual aid society. Although Steinem identified as Jewish, she also followed Theosophy."Pauline Steinem Opts for Women's Suffrage and Theosophy" in Jacob Rader Marcus, ed., The American Jewish Woman: A Documentary History (KTAV Publishing House 1981): 700. Steinem identified as a universalist rather than a Zionist.
In women's suffrage As an active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), she was a chairwoman of their educational committee and a delegate to the International Council of Women, held in Switzerland in 1908. She was head of the Ohio Woman's Suffrage Association from 1908 to 1911,"Wouldn't Have Husbands Do the Thinking for Wives" Dayton Herald (March 22, 1911): 5. via Newspapers.com and president of Toledo Council of Women,"For the Woman Who Reads" Labor Digest (November 1909): 19. as well as president of the Toledo Federation of Women's Clubs."Toledo's Steinem Was Early Woman Leader" Xenia Daily Gazette (April 29, 1976): 3. via Newspapers.com
Personal life In 1884, Pauline Perlmutter married Joseph Steinem, a German-born businessman who was living in Toledo, Ohio. They had four sons together, Edgar, Jesse, Clarence, and Leo; Edgar was born in Germany in 1885; the younger three sons were born in Ohio. She was widowed when Joseph died in 1929. Pauline Perlmutter Steinem died in 1940, aged 75 years, in Toledo."Pauline Steinem of Toledo Dies" Newark Advocate (January 6, 1940): 3. via Newspapers.com
Her son, Leo Steinem, was the father of American feminist Gloria Steinem,Jacqueline Jones Royster, Profiles of Ohio Women, 1803-2003 (Ohio State University Press 2003). and of lawyer and gem expert Susanne Steinem Patch.Patricia Sullivan, "Susanna Steinem Patch, 82; Gem Expert" Washington Post (November 7, 2007).Barbara Gamarekian, "Gloria's Big Sister Her Own Kind of Activist" Tampa Tribune (March 12, 1978): 95. via Newspapers.com
References
External links