Biography | Gloria Steinem — The East Room Where Obama Hung the Medal of Freedom

On 20 November 2013, in the East Room of the White House, President Barack Obama awarded Gloria Steinem the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It is the highest civilian honor the United States confers.

The citation called her a trailblazing writer and feminist organizer and named Ms. magazine among the work being recognized.

Fifteen other people received the medal that afternoon, including Oprah Winfrey, Loretta Lynn, and, posthumously, Sally Ride and Bayard Rustin.

The day before, Steinem was photographed in Washington with Senator Mazie Hirono.

That Senate photograph is the rights-clear portrait closest to the ceremony.

Official White House video of her citation is public domain.

A still of her receiving the ribbon from Obama did not turn up on Wikimedia Commons in a form we could ingest.

The East Room is not a street.

The pin is the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the public building that contains it.

Steinem was 79.

She had been on the road as a speaker and organizer for more than four decades by then.

She kept working after the medal.

She died on 2 September 2026 at her home in New York City, at 92.

That house is private and is not on this map.

The last public honor with a building a stranger can stand in front of is this one.

Photo: Gloria Steinem with Senator Mazie Hirono, 19 November 2013, Office of Senator Mazie Hirono, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. The medal was conferred the next day in the East Room.