1934-
Magazine Writer and Editor

From Writer to Editor.

Gloria Steinem entered the 1970s as an admired magazine writer and ended the decade as one of the most respected and influential magazine editors of the decade. Her involvement with Ms., which she helped to found in 1972 and which she edited for the next fifteen years, placed her at the forefront of the growing feminist movement in the United States.

The Path to Feminism.

Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio. She attended Smith College, where she was Phi Beta Kappa, and she also studied in India. During the 1960s she worked as a freelance journalist. Her 1963 breakthrough article in Show, about her undercover experience as a Playboy Bunny, led to assignments for high-profile magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Vogue. While a supporter of the civil rights movement, for most of the 1960s Steinem was not an active...