About the collection
Gloria Steinem was born in Toledo in 1934 and became one of the leading voices on issues of equality. In 2014, The Steinem Sisters Collective, a grassroots group of Toledo-area feminists, created a lending library of feminist publications to recognize the noted journalist and social activist’s 80th birthday and named it the Steinem Sisters’ Library and Resource Center. The library was housed at People Called Women, a feminist bookstore owned by one of the Collective’s founding members. When the store was sold in 2017, the Collective’s original set of feminist works was donated to the Toledo Lucas County Public Library and renamed the Steinem Sisters Collection. The Toledo Library is the only public library in the United States with a special feminist collection.
The Steinem Sisters Collection champions women’s historical, cultural, and political contributions and strives to provide a welcoming space for women from all walks of life to share their truths. It is composed of “feminist materials,” intersectional works that uphold human and women’s rights and interests in defining and promoting political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes, races, classes, sexual orientations, and genders. The Steinem Sisters Collection has grown to over 900 titles in the ten years since its inception. Regular programming, including book discussion groups and talking circles, aims to highlight the collection and build community.
