Richard Steinman

PORTLAND -- Dr. Richard Steinman, 80, of Portland died of cancer on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006, at the Barron Center in Portland.

Richard was born to Frances and Bernhardt Steinman on Sept. 28, 1925, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He grew up there and, following high school, served in the Navy as a radio operator in the Pacific during World War II. Following the war he attended college at the University of Missouri, Columbia, where he completed a bachelor's degree in social work. In the early 1950s, he returned to the Northeast, where he worked as a medical social worker in New York City and earned a master's degree in social work from Columbia University. Over the course of the next decade he worked as a social worker in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Indiana and Massachusetts. Richard later completed his social work education at Brandeis University, where he received a Ph.D. in social welfare in 1968.

In 1966, Richard moved to Portland to begin teaching in the University of Southern Maine's Department of Social Welfare. Richard entered the field of social gerontology in the early 1970s and began his scholarly research into issues related to aging and the role of the elderly in U.S. society. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, Richard received a Fulbright Scholarship to participate in the reconstruction of the social work profession in the former eastern block country of Hungary. He became professor emeritus at USM in 1987 but continued to teach part time for the next several years.

After a divorce, Richard came out as a gay man in the early 1970s. He was involved in progressive social movements and politics, and was particularly active in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) liberation efforts. He was a founding member of the Maine Gay and Lesbian Political Alliance (now Equality Maine) in 1984 and worked for many years to help bring about the addition of sexual orientation and gender expression as protected classes under the Maine Human Rights Act. In addition, he was mentor to many social work students and political activists in Maine and worked tirelessly on many progressive political campaigns.

Richard is survived by an older brother, Dr. Robert Steinman of Lancaster, Pa.; three of his four children, Jethro Steinman, of Havertown, Pa., India Hoeschen-Stein, of Natick, Mass., and Medea Steinman of Old Town; as well as many cousins, nieces, nephews, and one grandchild. A son, Antony Steinman, predeceased him in 1988.

A remembrance service will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Equality Maine, P.O. Box 1951, Portland, ME 04104.