Barbara Handman

Barbara Ann Schlein was born on March 11, 1928, in Philadelphia and grew up in nearby Elkins Park, Pa. Her father, Benjamin, was an engineer, and her mother, Sophie, was a homemaker. She attended Antioch College in Ohio, where she first became interested in political activism, and later graduated from Barnard, where she majored in philosophy. She met her husband, who was also a student, at a party; they married in 1950. nspired as a teenager by the Roosevelts, both Franklin D. and Eleanor, Ms. Handman was, for decades, a fund-raiser for Democratic candidates and a lobbyist for Democratic causes, both in New York and nationally. She supported Adlai Stevenson for the presidency in the 1950s, Eugene McCarthy in the 1960s, Jimmy Carter in the 1970s and Michael Dukakis in the 1980s. In recognition of her defense of First Amendment rights for writers, painters and other artists, President Bill Clinton awarded her the arts medal in 1998. Ms. Handman’s signature issues were preservation and free expression. She was senior vice president and director of the New York office of the People for the American Way Foundation, a nonpartisan partner of the organization founded in the 1980s by the television producer Norman Lear and others. In addition to her husband and their daughter Laura, a lawyer who is married to Harold M. Ickes, a former adviser to President Clinton, she is survived by a brother, Philip Schlein, known as Spike; another daughter, Liza Handman; and two grandchildren.