Pauline Perlmutter Steinem (August 4, 1864 — January 5, 1940) was a Jewish American suffragist born in Poland.

In 1904, she became the first woman to be elected to the Board of Education in Toledo, Ohio, as well as to any public office there, thereby becoming in all likelihood, the first Jewish woman, and definitely one of the earliest to hold, elected public office in the United States.

[2] As an active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), she was a chairwoman of their educational committee[1] and a delegate to the International Council of Women, held in Switzerland in 1908.

[12] In 1884, Pauline Perlmutter married Joseph Steinem, a German-born businessman who was living in Toledo, Ohio.

Pauline Perlmutter Steinem died in 1940, aged 75 years, in Toledo.