Gloria Steinem, the journalist and activist who became one of the most recognizable leaders of America’s modern feminist movement, has died at 92.

Her foundation announced Thursday that Steinem died Wednesday at her home in New York City. No cause of death was disclosed.

The announcement said she was surrounded by people who loved her and continued working for equality until the end of her life.

ABC News carried the first statement from Steinem’s official account:

Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1934. Her early life was unconventional: her family traveled frequently, and she spent part of her childhood caring for a mother whose own journalism career had been constrained by family responsibilities and mental illness.

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She first drew national attention in 1963 after going undercover as a Playboy Bunny and writing about the treatment and working conditions women faced inside Hugh Hefner’s clubs.

That assignment made her famous, but it was only the beginning.

The Associated Press reported that Steinem spent more than six decades carrying feminist causes into college campuses, rallies, political organizations and American media. She traveled and spoke well into her 80s, even as her health declined.

Her public image was unmistakable: long streaked hair, aviator glasses and a willingness to walk into almost any room to make her case. Steinem believed political organizing depended on people meeting face to face, and she spent much of her adult life doing exactly that.

The AP also traced the unusual childhood that shaped her independence. Her father sold antiques and moved the family constantly, while her mother had struggled to combine journalism with family life before suffering a breakdown.

Steinem later attended Smith College and entered a world that still largely expected educated women to become wives and mothers.

Reuters summarized the sheer span of that public career:

Steinem helped launch New York magazine and co-founded Ms. magazine in 1972, giving the second-wave feminist movement a national platform that reached far beyond activist meetings.

She also helped build organizations that turned cultural influence into political power.

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The National Women’s Political Caucus lists Steinem among the women who founded the group in 1971 alongside Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Fannie Lou Hamer and Bella Abzug. More than 320 women from 26 states attended its organizing conference.

That machinery mattered. The caucus trained and supported women seeking elected and appointed office, while Steinem’s writing and celebrity helped move feminist priorities deeper into Democratic politics.

The group describes its mission as increasing women’s participation throughout public life, from elected offices and judgeships to campaign organizations and national-party conventions. It still operates through state and local affiliates more than five decades after that first conference.

Steinem was never simply a writer commenting from the sidelines. She helped create institutions designed to recruit candidates, raise money, shape public debate and keep feminist policy goals alive between election cycles.

Her politics were unapologetically liberal, and abortion was central to them.

The Ms. Foundation for Women says Steinem served for 25 years as president and co-founder of Voters for Choice, a pro-abortion political action committee that later merged with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund for the 2004 election.

The foundation also credits her with helping establish the Women’s Action Alliance, Choice USA and the Women’s Media Center. Those organizations worked across elections, schools, media and activist networks, giving her influence a much longer life than any single magazine article or speech.

Steinem also spoke publicly about having an abortion at 22. She said attending a 1969 gathering where women discussed their abortions pushed her more deeply into political activism.

Pro-life outlet LifeNews reacted to her death by resurfacing that part of her record:

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Steinem’s politics were not ours. Her movement helped turn abortion from a private tragedy into a celebrated political cause, and generations of pro-life Americans fought the cultural and legal changes she championed.

That disagreement is not a footnote. It is a defining part of her legacy and one of the deepest moral divides in American life.

But death is not a reason for cruelty, either. It is possible to tell the truth about a person’s enormous influence, reject the causes she advanced and still recognize the grief of the people who loved her.

Steinem’s reach extended well beyond abortion politics. She co-founded the Women’s Action Alliance and the Women’s Media Center, backed campaigns against female genital mutilation and advocated for women in politics around the world.

In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Obama White House archive lists Steinem among that year’s recipients alongside former President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Loretta Lynn, Ernie Banks and several posthumous honorees from American public life.

At the East Room ceremony, the administration described the group as sports champions, scientists, musicians, civil-rights leaders, journalists and public servants who had made lasting contributions to the country. Steinem’s place in that company reflected how thoroughly ideas once treated as radical had entered the American establishment.

By then, her influence stretched from magazines and activist groups into Hollywood, universities, presidential campaigns and the White House itself.

She had become more than a movement organizer. She was one of liberal America’s most durable cultural institutions.

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Few political activists ever achieve that reach.

Even at 91, she was still writing. Her final memoir, An Unexpected Life, is expected to be published later this month.

For more than half a century, Gloria Steinem was a formidable force on the American left. Her death closes one of the longest and most consequential chapters in the history of modern feminism.

May she rest in peace.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

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