Steiner, Gilbert Yale 1924-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born May 11, 1924, in New York, NY; died of congestive heart failure, March 1, 2006, in Washington, DC. Political scientist, educator, administrator, and author. Steiner was a former director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institute, where he also served as acting president for a year. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II before completing his B.A. and M.A. at Columbia University in 1945 and 1948, respectively. Steiner then went on to earn a doctorate in 1950 from the University of Illinois. Remaining at that university, he joined the faculty and directed the Institute of Government and Public Affairs there. Steiner left Illinois to become a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. He directed the governmental studies program from 1968 to 1976 and was acting president the following year. He retired as senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institute in 1989. While there, Steiner developed a reputation as an authority on federal social and urban policies, writing books about welfare and family policy, among other subjects. His scholarship and concern for research on how government designed and administered policy, as well as how the committee process worked, attracted quality academics to Brookings, helping to make it one of America's leading institutions on government. Among his many published works are The Congressional Conference Committee: Seventieth to Eightieth Congresses (1951), Social Insecurity: The Politics of Welfare (1966), The Futility of Family Policy (1981), and Constitutional Inequality: The Political Fortunes of the Equal Rights Amendment (1985).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, March 13, 2006, p. A19.

Washington Post, March 11, 2006, p. B6.