Pauline Perlmutter Steinem

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, thereby becoming in all likelihood, the first Jewish woman, and definitely one of the earliest to hold, elected public office in the United States.

Pauline Perlmutter Steinem
Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, from a 1909 publication.
Born(1864-08-04)August 4, 1864
Radziejow, Poland
DiedJanuary 5, 1940(1940-01-05) (aged 75)
Toledo, Ohio, U.S.
NationalityAmerican

She rescued many members of her family from the Holocaust.[1] She was also the grandmother of feminist Gloria Steinem.

Early life

Pauline Perlmutter was born in Radziejow, Kingdom of Prussia (now located 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.[2]

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."[3]

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,[4] 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.[5]

She founded a public vocational school,[6] the Macomber Vocational High School,[7] and she worked for juvenile court reform in Ohio. She was also appointed to the board of trustees for the Toledo Public Library.[8][9]

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.[3] Steinem identified as a universalist rather than a Zionist.[2]

In women's suffrage

As an active member of the National Woman Suffrage Association, she was a chairwoman of their educational committee[1] 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,[10] and president of Toledo Council of Women,[11] as well as president of the Toledo Federation of Women's Clubs.[12]

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.[13]

Her son, Leo Steinem, was the father of American feminist Gloria Steinem,[14] and of lawyer and gem expert Susanne Steinem Patch.[15][16]

References
  1. Pogrebin, Letty Cottin (March 20, 2009). "Gloria Steinem". Jewish Women's Archive. Archived from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012.
  2. Gloria Steinem, "Pauline Perlmutter Steinem" Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia (March 2009).
  3. "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. ISBN 9780870687525
  4. Jacob Rader Marcus, The American Jewish Woman, 1654-1980 (KTAV Publishing 1981): 152. ISBN 9780870687518
  5. "Pauline Pearlmutter Steinem", Her Hat Was In the Ring: U. S. Women Who Ran for Political Office Before 1920.
  6. "Mrs. Pauline Steinem Discusses 'The Toledo Idea'" Pittsburgh Daily Post (May 16, 1909): 36. via Newspapers.comopen access
  7. Patricia Cronin Marcello, Gloria Steinem: A Biography (Greenwood Publishing 2004): 3-5. ISBN 9780313325762
  8. Report of the Toledo Public Library (1910 and 1911): 39.
  9. "Women Who Are Doing Things" Detroit Free Press (April 3, 1910): 61. via Newspapers.comopen access
  10. "Wouldn't Have Husbands Do the Thinking for Wives" Dayton Herald (March 22, 1911): 5. via Newspapers.comopen access
  11. "For the Woman Who Reads" Labor Digest (November 1909): 19.
  12. "Toledo's Steinem Was Early Woman Leader" Xenia Daily Gazette (April 29, 1976): 3. via Newspapers.comopen access
  13. "Pauline Steinem of Toledo Dies" Newark Advocate (January 6, 1940): 3. via Newspapers.comopen access
  14. Jacqueline Jones Royster, Profiles of Ohio Women, 1803-2003 (Ohio State University Press 2003). ISBN 9780821415085
  15. Patricia Sullivan, "Susanna Steinem Patch, 82; Gem Expert" Washington Post (November 7, 2007).
  16. Barbara Gamarekian, "Gloria's Big Sister Her Own Kind of Activist" Tampa Tribune (March 12, 1978): 95. via Newspapers.comopen access
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