Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an American writer, lecturer and social reformer. She is best known for the story The Yellow Wall-Paper, drawn from her own experience of depression and of a harmful rest cure, and for Women and Economics, which argued that women must be economically independent.
Genres
novels and stories, essays
Works
The Yellow Wall-Paper
Early life
Charlotte Perkins was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1860. Her father left the family, and she grew up in poverty, moving often.
She belonged through him to the Beecher family, which included Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The rest cure
After her marriage to the artist Charles Walter Stetson and the birth of their daughter, she fell into deep depression. A famous doctor prescribed complete rest and forbade her to write.
She later said that this treatment nearly drove her mad. The Yellow Wall-Paper, published in 1892, was written partly to warn others.
Gilman divorced, moved to California and became a popular lecturer on the rights of women and workers.
In Women and Economics (1898) and in her utopian novel Herland (1915), she imagined a society in which women would be free from economic dependence.
Anecdotes
A copy for the doctor
Gilman said she sent a copy of The Yellow Wall-Paper to the doctor who had treated her, and later heard that he had changed his methods.
The Forerunner
From 1909 to 1916, Gilman wrote and published her own monthly magazine, The Forerunner, almost entirely by herself.
Frequently asked questions
What is Gilman's best-known story?
The Yellow Wall-Paper, published in 1892.
What did she argue in Women and Economics?
That women must be economically independent.
What is Herland?
A utopian novel about a society of women, published in 1915.