Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Encyclopedia
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935) was a prominent American
sociologist, novelist, writer
of short stories
, poetry
, and nonfiction, and a lecturer
for social reform. She was a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story The Yellow Wallpaper
which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis
.
, to Mary Perkins (formerly Mary Fitch Westcott) and Frederick Beecher Perkins. She had only one brother, Thomas Adie, who was fourteen months older, because a physician advised Mary Perkins that she might die if she bore other children. During Charlotte's infancy, her father moved out and abandoned his wife and children, leaving them in an impoverished state. Since their mother was unable to support the family on her own, the Perkinses were often in the presence of aunts on her father's side of the family, namely Isabella Beecher Hooker
, a suffragist, Harriet Beecher Stowe
(author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
) and Catharine Beecher
.
At the age of five, Gilman taught herself to read because her mother was ill. Her mother was not affectionate with her children. To keep them from getting hurt as she had been, she forbade her children to make strong friendships or read fiction. In her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gilman wrote that her mother showed affection only when she thought her young daughter was asleep. Although she lived a childhood of isolated, impoverished loneliness, she unknowingly prepared herself for the life that lay ahead by frequently visiting the public library and studying ancient civilizations on her own. Additionally, her father's love for literature influenced her, and years later he contacted her with a list of books he felt would be worthwhile for her to read.
Much of Gilman's youth was spent in Providence, Rhode Island. What friends she had were mainly male, and she was unashamed to call herself a "tomboy." She attended seven different public schools, and was a correspondent student of the Society to Encourage Studies at Home
but studied only until she was fifteen.
Her natural intelligence and breadth of knowledge always impressed her teachers, who were nonetheless disappointed in her because she was a poor student. Her favorite subject was "natural philosophy," especially what later become known as physics. In 1878, the eighteen-year-old enrolled in classes at the Rhode Island School of Design
with the monetary help of her absent father, and subsequently supported herself as an artist of trade cards. She was a tutor, and encouraged others to expand their artistic creativity. She was also a painter.
after initially declining his proposal because a gut feeling told her it was not the right thing for her. Their only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born the following year. Charlotte Perkins Gilman suffered a very serious bout of post-partum depression in the months after Katharine's birth. This was an age in which women were seen as "hysterical" and "nervous" beings; thus, when a woman claimed to be seriously ill after giving birth, her claims were sometimes dismissed as being invalid.
In 1888, Charlotte separated from her husband — a rare occurrence in the late nineteenth century, but one that was necessary for the improvement of her mental health. The two legally divorced in 1894. Following the separation, Charlotte moved with her daughter to Pasadena, California
, where she became active in several feminist and reformist organizations such as The Pacific Coast Woman's Press Association, the Woman's Alliance, the Economic Club, the Ebell Society, the Parents Association, and the State Council of Women, in addition to writing and editing the Bulletin, a journal put out by one of the earlier-mentioned organizations.
In 1894, Gilman sent her daughter west to live with her former husband and his second wife, Grace Ellery Channing, who was a close friend of Gilman's. Gilman reported in her memoir that she was happy for the couple, since Katharine's "second mother was fully as good as the first, [and perhaps] better in some ways." Gilman also held progressive views about paternal rights and acknowledged that her ex-husband "had a right to some of [Katharine's] society" and that Katharine "had a right to know and love her father."
After her mother died in 1893 Charlotte decided to move back east for the first time in eight years. She contacted Houghton Gilman, her first cousin, whom she had not seen in roughly fifteen years, who was a Wall Street attorney. They began spending a significant amount of time together almost immediately and became romantically involved. While she would go on lecture tours, Houghton and Charlotte would exchange letters and spend as much time as they could together before she left. In her diaries, she describes him as being "pleasurable" and it is clear that she was deeply interested in him. From their wedding in 1900 until 1922, they lived in New York City. Their marriage was nothing like Charlotte and Walter's. In 1922, Gilman moved from New York to Houghton's old homestead in Norwich, Connecticut
. Following Houghton's sudden death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1934, Gilman moved back to Pasadena, California, where her daughter resided.
In January 1932, Gilman was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer
. An advocate of euthanasia
for the terminally ill, Gilman committed suicide
on August 17, 1935 by taking an overdose of chloroform
. In both her autobiography and suicide note, she wrote that she "chose chloroform over cancer" and she died quickly and quietly.
, a movement which worked to "end capitalism's
greed and distinctions between classes while promoting a peaceful, ethical, and truly progressive
human race." Published in the Nationalist magazine, her poem, Similar Cases was a satirical review of people who resisted social change and she received positive feedback from critics for it. Throughout that same year, 1890, she became inspired enough to write fifteen essays, poems, a novella, and the short story The Yellow Wallpaper. Her career was launched when she began lecturing on Nationalism and gained the public's eye with her first volume of poetry, In This Our World, published in 1893. As a successful lecturer who relied on giving speeches as a source of income, her fame grew along with her social circle of similar-minded activists and writers of the feminist movement.
The story is about a woman who suffers from mental illness after three months of being closeted in a room by her husband for the sake of her health. She becomes obsessed with the room's revolting yellow wallpaper. Gilman wrote this story to change people's minds about the role of women in society, illustrating how women's lack of autonomy is detrimental to their mental, emotional, and even physical wellbeing. The narrator in the story must do as her husband, who is also her doctor, demands, although the treatment he prescribes contrasts directly with what she truly needs — mental stimulation and the freedom to escape the monotony of the room to which she is confined. The Yellow Wallpaper was essentially a response to the doctor who had tried to cure her of her depression through a "rest cure", Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and she sent him a copy of the story.
In 1894–95 Gilman served as editor of the magazine The Impress, a literary weekly that was published by the Pacific Coast Women’s Press Association (formerly the Bulletin). For the twenty weeks the magazine was printed, she was consumed in the satisfying accomplishment of contributing its poems, editorials, and other articles. The short-lived paper's printing came to an end as a result of a social bias against her lifestyle which included being an unconventional mother and a woman who had divorced a man. After a four-month-long lecture tour that ended in April 1897, Gilman began to think more deeply about sexual relationships and economics in American life, eventually completing the first draft of Women and Economics (1898). The book was published in the following year, and propelled Gilman into the international spotlight. In 1903, she addressed the International Congress of Women in Berlin, and, the next year, toured in England, Holland, Germany, Austria, and Hungary.
In 1903 she wrote one of her most critically acclaimed books, The Home: Its Work and Influence, which expanded upon Women and Economics
, proposing that women are oppressed in their home and that the environment in which they live needs to be modified in order to be healthy for their mental states. In between traveling and writing, her career as a literary figure was secured. From 1909 to 1916 Gilman single-handedly wrote and edited her own magazine, The Forerunner, in which much of her fiction appeared. By presenting material in her magazine that would "stimulate thought", "arouse hope, courage and impatience", and "express ideas which need a special medium", she aimed to go against the mainstream media which was overly sensational. Over seven years and two months the magazine produced eighty six issues, each twenty eight pages long. The magazine had nearly 1,500 subscribers and featured such serialized works as What Diantha Did (1910), The Crux (1911), Moving the Mountain
(1911), and Herland
. The Forerunner has been cited as being "perhaps the greatest literary accomplishment of her long career". After its seven years, she wrote hundreds of articles which were submitted to the Louisville Herald, The Baltimore Sun, and the Buffalo Evening News. Her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which she began to write in 1925, appeared posthumously in 1935.
On April 18, 1887, Gilman wrote in her diary that she was very sick with "some brain disease" which brought suffering that cannot be felt by anybody else, to the point that her "mind has given way." To begin, the patient could not even leave her bed, read, write, sew, talk, or feed herself.
After nine weeks, Gilman was sent home with Mitchell’s instructions, “Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time... Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live.” She tried for a few months to follow Mitchell's advice, but her depression deepened, and Gilman came perilously close to a full emotional collapse. Her remaining sanity was on the line and she began to display suicidal behavior that involved talk of pistols and chloroform, as recorded in her husband's diaries. By early summer the couple had decided that a divorce was necessary for her to regain sanity without affecting the lives of her husband and daughter.
During the summer of 1888, Charlotte and Katharine spent time in Bristol, Rhode Island, away from Walter, and it was there where her depression began to lift. She writes of herself noticing positive changes in her attitude. She returned to Providence in September. She sold property that had been left to her in Connecticut, and went with a friend, Grace Channing, to Pasadena where the cure of her depression can be seen through the transformation of her intellectual life.
, and believed the domestic environment oppressed women through the patriarchal beliefs upheld by society. Gilman embraced the theory of reform Darwinism
and argued that Darwin's theories of evolution only presented the male as the given in the process of human evolution, thus overlooking the origins of the female brain in society which rationally chose the best suited mate that they could find. In doing so, Charlotte believed very seriously that Charles Darwin
accidentally subjugated women by installing male sex selection, which requires constant sexual contact as opposed to a more periodic sexuality, thus leading to the oppression of women through rape and violence.
Gilman argued that male aggressiveness and maternal roles for women were artificial and no longer necessary for survival in post-prehistoric times. She wrote, "There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver".
Her main argument was that sex and domestic economics went hand in hand; in order for a woman to survive she was reliant on her sexual assets to please her husband so that he would bring home the bread. From childhood young girls are forced into a social constraint that prepares them for motherhood by the toys that are marketed to them and the clothes designed for them. She argued that there should be no difference in the clothes that little girls and boys wear, the toys they play with, or the activities they do, and described tomboys as perfect humans who ran around and used their bodies freely and healthily.
Gilman argued that women's contributions to civilization, throughout history, have been halted because of an androcentric
culture. She believed that the female race was the half of humanity that was underdeveloped, and improvement was necessary to prevent the deterioration of the human race. Gilman believed economic independence is the only thing that could really bring freedom for women, and make them equal to men. In 1898 she published Women and Economics, a theoretical treatise which argued, among other things, that women are subjugated by men, that motherhood should not preclude a woman from working outside the home, and that housekeeping, cooking, and child care, would be professionalized. “The ideal woman," Gilman wrote, "was not only assigned a social role that locked her into her home, but she was also expected to like it, to be cheerful and gay, smiling and good-humored.” When the sexual-economic relationship ceases to exist, life on the domestic front would certainly improve, as frustration in relationships often stems from the lack of social contact that the domestic wife has with the outside world.
Gilman became a spokesperson on topics such as women’s perspectives on work, dress reform, and family. Housework, she argued, should be equally shared by men and women, and that at an early age women should be encouraged to be independent. In many of her major works, including "The Home" (1903), Human Work (1904), and The Man-Made World (1911), Gilman also advocated women working outside of the home.
Race A, progressed in social evolution, say, to Status 10; and Race B, progressed in social evolution, say, to Status 4. . . . Given: that Race B, in its present condition, does not develop fast enough to suit Race A. Question: How can Race A best and most quickly romote the development of Race B?” Gilman’s solution was that all blacks beneath “a certain grade of citizenship” — those who were not
“decent, self-supporting, [and] progressive” — “should be taken hold of by the state.”
Gilman also believed old stock Americans of British colonial descent were giving up their country to immigrants who, she said, were diluting the nation's reproductive purity. However, in an effort to gain votes for all women, she spoke out against the literacy requirements for the right to vote at the national American Women's Suffrage Association
convention which took place in 1903 in New Orleans.
Although Gilman had gained international fame with the publication of Women and Economics
in 1898, by the end of World War I
she seemed out of tune with her times. In her autobiography she admitted, "unfortunately my views on the sex question do not appeal to the Freudian
complex of today, nor are people satisfied with a presentation of religion as a help in our tremendous work of improving this world."
Ann J. Lane writes in Herland and Beyond that “Gilman offered perspectives on major issues of gender
with which we still grapple; the origins of women’s subjugation, the struggle to achieve both autonomy and intimacy in human relationships; the central role of work as a definition of self; new strategies for rearing and educating future generations to create a humane and nurturing environment.”
Recently, she has been criticized for her idea in A Suggestion on the Negro Problem to enlist a civic army of blacks like an AmeriCorps to provide jobs and discipline.
“There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver.”
“There was a time when Patience ceased to be a virtue. It was long ago.”
“To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.”
"It is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always
in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it."
"The softest, freest, most pliable and changeful living substance is the brain -- the hardest and most iron-bound as well."
"A house does not need a wife any more than it needs a husband."
"When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick
and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one." (from her suicide note).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sociologist, novelist, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
of short stories
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
, poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and nonfiction, and a lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
for social reform. She was a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the nineteenth century toward women's physical...
which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis
Postpartum psychosis
Postpartum psychosis is a term that covers a group of mental illnesses with the sudden onset of psychotic symptoms following childbirth. In this group there are at least a dozen organic psychoses, which are described under another heading "organic pre- and postpartum psychoses"...
.
Early life
Charlotte was born on July 3, 1860 in Hartford, ConnecticutHartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, to Mary Perkins (formerly Mary Fitch Westcott) and Frederick Beecher Perkins. She had only one brother, Thomas Adie, who was fourteen months older, because a physician advised Mary Perkins that she might die if she bore other children. During Charlotte's infancy, her father moved out and abandoned his wife and children, leaving them in an impoverished state. Since their mother was unable to support the family on her own, the Perkinses were often in the presence of aunts on her father's side of the family, namely Isabella Beecher Hooker
Isabella Beecher Hooker
Isabella Beecher Hooker was a leader in the women's suffrage movement and an author.-Biography:Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, she was a daughter of Reverend Lyman Beecher, a noted abolitionist. Among her half brothers and sisters were Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Catharine Beecher, and...
, a suffragist, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
(author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
) and Catharine Beecher
Catharine Beecher
Catharine Esther Beecher was an American educator known for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of kindergarten into children's education....
.
At the age of five, Gilman taught herself to read because her mother was ill. Her mother was not affectionate with her children. To keep them from getting hurt as she had been, she forbade her children to make strong friendships or read fiction. In her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gilman wrote that her mother showed affection only when she thought her young daughter was asleep. Although she lived a childhood of isolated, impoverished loneliness, she unknowingly prepared herself for the life that lay ahead by frequently visiting the public library and studying ancient civilizations on her own. Additionally, her father's love for literature influenced her, and years later he contacted her with a list of books he felt would be worthwhile for her to read.
Much of Gilman's youth was spent in Providence, Rhode Island. What friends she had were mainly male, and she was unashamed to call herself a "tomboy." She attended seven different public schools, and was a correspondent student of the Society to Encourage Studies at Home
Society to Encourage Studies at Home
The Society to Encourage Studies at Home was the first correspondence school in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts by Anna Eliot Ticknor.-History:...
but studied only until she was fifteen.
Her natural intelligence and breadth of knowledge always impressed her teachers, who were nonetheless disappointed in her because she was a poor student. Her favorite subject was "natural philosophy," especially what later become known as physics. In 1878, the eighteen-year-old enrolled in classes at the Rhode Island School of Design
Rhode Island School of Design
Rhode Island School of Design is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1877. Located at the base of College Hill, the RISD campus is contiguous with the Brown University campus. The two institutions share social, academic, and community resources and...
with the monetary help of her absent father, and subsequently supported herself as an artist of trade cards. She was a tutor, and encouraged others to expand their artistic creativity. She was also a painter.
Adulthood
In 1884, she married the artist Charles Walter StetsonCharles Walter Stetson
Charles Walter Stetson was an American artist often known as a "colorist" for his rich use of color. He married Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1884, their only child was born in 1885, they were separated in 1888, and they divorced amicably in 1894....
after initially declining his proposal because a gut feeling told her it was not the right thing for her. Their only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born the following year. Charlotte Perkins Gilman suffered a very serious bout of post-partum depression in the months after Katharine's birth. This was an age in which women were seen as "hysterical" and "nervous" beings; thus, when a woman claimed to be seriously ill after giving birth, her claims were sometimes dismissed as being invalid.
In 1888, Charlotte separated from her husband — a rare occurrence in the late nineteenth century, but one that was necessary for the improvement of her mental health. The two legally divorced in 1894. Following the separation, Charlotte moved with her daughter to Pasadena, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where she became active in several feminist and reformist organizations such as The Pacific Coast Woman's Press Association, the Woman's Alliance, the Economic Club, the Ebell Society, the Parents Association, and the State Council of Women, in addition to writing and editing the Bulletin, a journal put out by one of the earlier-mentioned organizations.
After her mother died in 1893 Charlotte decided to move back east for the first time in eight years. She contacted Houghton Gilman, her first cousin, whom she had not seen in roughly fifteen years, who was a Wall Street attorney. They began spending a significant amount of time together almost immediately and became romantically involved. While she would go on lecture tours, Houghton and Charlotte would exchange letters and spend as much time as they could together before she left. In her diaries, she describes him as being "pleasurable" and it is clear that she was deeply interested in him. From their wedding in 1900 until 1922, they lived in New York City. Their marriage was nothing like Charlotte and Walter's. In 1922, Gilman moved from New York to Houghton's old homestead in Norwich, Connecticut
Norwich, Connecticut
Regular steamship service between New York and Boston helped Norwich to prosper as a shipping center through the early part of the 20th century. During the Civil War, Norwich once again rallied and saw the growth of its textile, armaments, and specialty item manufacturing...
. Following Houghton's sudden death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1934, Gilman moved back to Pasadena, California, where her daughter resided.
In January 1932, Gilman was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
. An advocate of euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
for the terminally ill, Gilman committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
on August 17, 1935 by taking an overdose of chloroform
Chloroform
Chloroform is an organic compound with formula CHCl3. It is one of the four chloromethanes. The colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid is a trihalomethane, and is considered somewhat hazardous...
. In both her autobiography and suicide note, she wrote that she "chose chloroform over cancer" and she died quickly and quietly.
Career
After moving to Pasadena, Charlotte became active in organizing social reform movements. As a delegate, she represented California in 1896 at both the Suffrage Convention in Washington, D.C. and the International Socialist and Labor Congress which was held in England. In 1890, she was introduced to NationalismNationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, a movement which worked to "end capitalism's
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
greed and distinctions between classes while promoting a peaceful, ethical, and truly progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
human race." Published in the Nationalist magazine, her poem, Similar Cases was a satirical review of people who resisted social change and she received positive feedback from critics for it. Throughout that same year, 1890, she became inspired enough to write fifteen essays, poems, a novella, and the short story The Yellow Wallpaper. Her career was launched when she began lecturing on Nationalism and gained the public's eye with her first volume of poetry, In This Our World, published in 1893. As a successful lecturer who relied on giving speeches as a source of income, her fame grew along with her social circle of similar-minded activists and writers of the feminist movement.
The Yellow Wallpaper
Although it was not the first or longest of her works, without question Gilman's most famous piece is her short story The Yellow Wallpaper, which became a best-seller of the Feminist Press. She wrote it on June 6 and 7 of 1890 in her home of Pasadena, and it was printed a year and a half later in the January 1892 issue of The New England Magazine. Since its original printing, it has been anthologized in numerous collections of women's literature, American literature, and textbooks, though not always in its original form. For instance, many textbooks omit the phrase "in marriage" from a very important line in the beginning of story: "John laughs at me , of course, but one expects that in marriage." The reason for this omission is a mystery, as Gilman's view views on marriage are made clear throughout the story.The story is about a woman who suffers from mental illness after three months of being closeted in a room by her husband for the sake of her health. She becomes obsessed with the room's revolting yellow wallpaper. Gilman wrote this story to change people's minds about the role of women in society, illustrating how women's lack of autonomy is detrimental to their mental, emotional, and even physical wellbeing. The narrator in the story must do as her husband, who is also her doctor, demands, although the treatment he prescribes contrasts directly with what she truly needs — mental stimulation and the freedom to escape the monotony of the room to which she is confined. The Yellow Wallpaper was essentially a response to the doctor who had tried to cure her of her depression through a "rest cure", Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and she sent him a copy of the story.
Other notable works
Gilman's first book was Art Gems for the Home and Fireside (1888); however, it was her first volume of poetry, In This Our World (1893), a collection of satirical poems, that first brought her recognition. During the next two decades she gained much of her fame with lectures on women's issues, ethics, labor, human rights, and social reform. She often referred to these themes in her fiction.In 1894–95 Gilman served as editor of the magazine The Impress, a literary weekly that was published by the Pacific Coast Women’s Press Association (formerly the Bulletin). For the twenty weeks the magazine was printed, she was consumed in the satisfying accomplishment of contributing its poems, editorials, and other articles. The short-lived paper's printing came to an end as a result of a social bias against her lifestyle which included being an unconventional mother and a woman who had divorced a man. After a four-month-long lecture tour that ended in April 1897, Gilman began to think more deeply about sexual relationships and economics in American life, eventually completing the first draft of Women and Economics (1898). The book was published in the following year, and propelled Gilman into the international spotlight. In 1903, she addressed the International Congress of Women in Berlin, and, the next year, toured in England, Holland, Germany, Austria, and Hungary.
In 1903 she wrote one of her most critically acclaimed books, The Home: Its Work and Influence, which expanded upon Women and Economics
Women and Economics
Women and Economics – A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution is a book written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1898...
, proposing that women are oppressed in their home and that the environment in which they live needs to be modified in order to be healthy for their mental states. In between traveling and writing, her career as a literary figure was secured. From 1909 to 1916 Gilman single-handedly wrote and edited her own magazine, The Forerunner, in which much of her fiction appeared. By presenting material in her magazine that would "stimulate thought", "arouse hope, courage and impatience", and "express ideas which need a special medium", she aimed to go against the mainstream media which was overly sensational. Over seven years and two months the magazine produced eighty six issues, each twenty eight pages long. The magazine had nearly 1,500 subscribers and featured such serialized works as What Diantha Did (1910), The Crux (1911), Moving the Mountain
Moving the Mountain (novel)
Moving the Mountain is a feminist utopian novel written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was published serially in Perkins Gilman's periodical The Forerunner and then in book form, both in 1911. The book was one element in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that marked the later...
(1911), and Herland
Herland (novel)
Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis . The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination...
. The Forerunner has been cited as being "perhaps the greatest literary accomplishment of her long career". After its seven years, she wrote hundreds of articles which were submitted to the Louisville Herald, The Baltimore Sun, and the Buffalo Evening News. Her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which she began to write in 1925, appeared posthumously in 1935.
Rest Cure Treatment
Gilman married Walter Stetson in 1884, and less than a year later gave birth to their daughter Katharine. Already susceptible to depression, her symptoms were exacerbated by marriage and motherhood. A good proportion of her diary entries from the time she gave birth to her daughter until several years later describe the oncoming depression that she was to face.On April 18, 1887, Gilman wrote in her diary that she was very sick with "some brain disease" which brought suffering that cannot be felt by anybody else, to the point that her "mind has given way." To begin, the patient could not even leave her bed, read, write, sew, talk, or feed herself.
After nine weeks, Gilman was sent home with Mitchell’s instructions, “Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time... Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live.” She tried for a few months to follow Mitchell's advice, but her depression deepened, and Gilman came perilously close to a full emotional collapse. Her remaining sanity was on the line and she began to display suicidal behavior that involved talk of pistols and chloroform, as recorded in her husband's diaries. By early summer the couple had decided that a divorce was necessary for her to regain sanity without affecting the lives of her husband and daughter.
During the summer of 1888, Charlotte and Katharine spent time in Bristol, Rhode Island, away from Walter, and it was there where her depression began to lift. She writes of herself noticing positive changes in her attitude. She returned to Providence in September. She sold property that had been left to her in Connecticut, and went with a friend, Grace Channing, to Pasadena where the cure of her depression can be seen through the transformation of her intellectual life.
Reform Darwinism and the Role of Female in Society
Gilman called herself a humanistHumanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, and believed the domestic environment oppressed women through the patriarchal beliefs upheld by society. Gilman embraced the theory of reform Darwinism
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
and argued that Darwin's theories of evolution only presented the male as the given in the process of human evolution, thus overlooking the origins of the female brain in society which rationally chose the best suited mate that they could find. In doing so, Charlotte believed very seriously that Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
accidentally subjugated women by installing male sex selection, which requires constant sexual contact as opposed to a more periodic sexuality, thus leading to the oppression of women through rape and violence.
Gilman argued that male aggressiveness and maternal roles for women were artificial and no longer necessary for survival in post-prehistoric times. She wrote, "There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver".
Her main argument was that sex and domestic economics went hand in hand; in order for a woman to survive she was reliant on her sexual assets to please her husband so that he would bring home the bread. From childhood young girls are forced into a social constraint that prepares them for motherhood by the toys that are marketed to them and the clothes designed for them. She argued that there should be no difference in the clothes that little girls and boys wear, the toys they play with, or the activities they do, and described tomboys as perfect humans who ran around and used their bodies freely and healthily.
Gilman argued that women's contributions to civilization, throughout history, have been halted because of an androcentric
Androcentrism
Androcentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing male human beings or the masculine point of view at the center of one's view of the world and its culture and history...
culture. She believed that the female race was the half of humanity that was underdeveloped, and improvement was necessary to prevent the deterioration of the human race. Gilman believed economic independence is the only thing that could really bring freedom for women, and make them equal to men. In 1898 she published Women and Economics, a theoretical treatise which argued, among other things, that women are subjugated by men, that motherhood should not preclude a woman from working outside the home, and that housekeeping, cooking, and child care, would be professionalized. “The ideal woman," Gilman wrote, "was not only assigned a social role that locked her into her home, but she was also expected to like it, to be cheerful and gay, smiling and good-humored.” When the sexual-economic relationship ceases to exist, life on the domestic front would certainly improve, as frustration in relationships often stems from the lack of social contact that the domestic wife has with the outside world.
Gilman became a spokesperson on topics such as women’s perspectives on work, dress reform, and family. Housework, she argued, should be equally shared by men and women, and that at an early age women should be encouraged to be independent. In many of her major works, including "The Home" (1903), Human Work (1904), and The Man-Made World (1911), Gilman also advocated women working outside of the home.
Race
With regard to African Americans, Gilman wrote in the American Journal of Sociology: “The problem, is this: Given: in the same country,Race A, progressed in social evolution, say, to Status 10; and Race B, progressed in social evolution, say, to Status 4. . . . Given: that Race B, in its present condition, does not develop fast enough to suit Race A. Question: How can Race A best and most quickly romote the development of Race B?” Gilman’s solution was that all blacks beneath “a certain grade of citizenship” — those who were not
“decent, self-supporting, [and] progressive” — “should be taken hold of by the state.”
Gilman also believed old stock Americans of British colonial descent were giving up their country to immigrants who, she said, were diluting the nation's reproductive purity. However, in an effort to gain votes for all women, she spoke out against the literacy requirements for the right to vote at the national American Women's Suffrage Association
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
convention which took place in 1903 in New Orleans.
Critical reception
The Yellow Wallpaper was initially met with a mixed reception. One critic wrote to the Boston Transcript: “The story could hardly, it would seem, give pleasure to any reader, and to many whose lives have been touched through the dearest ties by this dread disease, it must bring the keenest pain. To others, whose lives have become a struggle against heredity of mental derangement, such literature contains deadly peril. Should such stories be allowed to pass without severest censure?” Positive reviewers describe it as impressive because it is the most suggestive and graphic account of why women who live monotonous lives go crazy.Although Gilman had gained international fame with the publication of Women and Economics
Women and Economics
Women and Economics – A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution is a book written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1898...
in 1898, by the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
she seemed out of tune with her times. In her autobiography she admitted, "unfortunately my views on the sex question do not appeal to the Freudian
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
complex of today, nor are people satisfied with a presentation of religion as a help in our tremendous work of improving this world."
Ann J. Lane writes in Herland and Beyond that “Gilman offered perspectives on major issues of gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
with which we still grapple; the origins of women’s subjugation, the struggle to achieve both autonomy and intimacy in human relationships; the central role of work as a definition of self; new strategies for rearing and educating future generations to create a humane and nurturing environment.”
Recently, she has been criticized for her idea in A Suggestion on the Negro Problem to enlist a civic army of blacks like an AmeriCorps to provide jobs and discipline.
Quotations by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society -- more briefly, to find your real job, and do it.”“There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver.”
“There was a time when Patience ceased to be a virtue. It was long ago.”
“To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.”
"It is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always
in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it."
"The softest, freest, most pliable and changeful living substance is the brain -- the hardest and most iron-bound as well."
"A house does not need a wife any more than it needs a husband."
"When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick
and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one." (from her suicide note).
Poetry Collections
- In This Our World,1st ed. Oakland: McCombs & Vaughn, 1893. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. 2nd ed.; San Francisco: Press of James H. Barry, 1895.
- Suffrage Songs and Verses. New York: Charlton Co., 1911. Microfilm. New Haven: Research Publications, 1977, History of Women #6558.
- The Later Poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1996.
Short stories
Gilman published 186 short stories in magazines, newspapers, and many were published in her self-published monthly, The Forerunner. Many literary critics have ignored these short stories.- "Circumstances Alter Cases." Kate Field's Washington 23 July 1890: 55-56. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 32-38.
- "That Rare Jewel." Women's Journal 17 May 1890: 158. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 20-24.
- "The Unexpected." Kate Field's Washington 21 May 1890: 335-6. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 25-31.
- "An Extinct Angel." Kate Field's Washington 23 Sept 1891:199-200. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 48-50.
- "The Giant Wistaria." New England Magazine 4 (1891): 480-85. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 39-47.
- "The Yellow Wall-paper." New England Magazine 5 (1892): 647-56; Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1899; NY: Feminist Press, 1973 Afterword Elaine Hedges; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. Introduction Robert Shulman.
- "The Rocking-Chair." Worthington's Illustrated 1 (1893): 453-59. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 51-61.
- "An Elopement." San Francisco Call 10 July 1893: 1. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 66-68.
- "Deserted." San Francisco Call 17 July 1893: 1-2. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 62-65.
- "Through This." Kate Field's Washington 13 Sept 1893: 166. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 69-72.
- "A Day's Berryin.'" Impress 13 Oct 1894: 4-5. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 78-82.
- "Five Girls." Impress 1 Dec 1894: 5. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 83-86.
- "One Way Out."Impress 29 Dec 1894: 4-5. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 87-91.
- "The Misleading of Pendleton Oaks." Impress 6 Oct 1894: 4-5. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 73-77.
- "An Unnatural Mother." Impress 16 Feb 1895: 4-5. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 98-106.
- "An Unpatented Process." Impress 12 Jan 1895: 4-5. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 92-97.
- "According to Solomon." Forerunner 1:2 (1909):1-5. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 122-129.
- "Three Thanksgivings." Forerunner 1 (1909): 5-12. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 107-121.
- "What Diantha Did." Forerunner 1 (1909–11); NY: Charlton Co., 1910; London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912.
- "The Cottagette." Forerunner 1:10 (1910): 1-5. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 130-138.
- "When I Was a Witch." Forerunner 1 (1910): 1-6. The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader. Ed. Ann J. Lane. NY: Pantheon, 1980. 21-31.
- "In Two Houses." Forerunner 2:7 (1911): 171-77. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 159-171.
- "Making a Change." Forerunner 2:12 (1911): 311-315 . "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 182-190.
- "Moving the Mountain." Forerunner 2 (1911); NY: Charlton Co., 1911; The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader. Ed. Ann J. Lane. NY: Pantheon, 1980. 178-188.
- "The Crux." Forerunner 2 (1910); NY: Charlton Co., 1911; The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader. Ed. Ann J. Lane. NY: Pantheon, 1980. 116-122.
- "The Jumping-off Place." Forerunner 2:4 (1911): 87-93. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 148-158.
- "The Widow's Might." Forerunner 2:1 (1911): 3-7. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 139-147.
- "Turned." Forerunner 2:9 (1911): 227-32. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 182-191.
- "Mrs. Elder's Idea." Forerunner 3:2 (1912): 29-32. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 191-199.
- "Their House." Forerunner 3:12 (1912): 309-14. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 200-209.
- "A Council of War." Forerunner 4:8 (1913): 197-201. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 235-243.
- "Bee Wise." Forerunner 4:7 (1913): 169-173. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 226-234.
- "Her Beauty." Forerunner 4:2 (1913): 29-33. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 210-217.
- "Mrs. Hines's Money." Forerunner 4:4 (1913): 85-89. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 218-226.
- "A Partnership." Forerunner 5:6 (1914): 141-45. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 253-261.
- "Begnina Machiavelli." Forerunner 5 (1914); NY: Such and Such Publishing, 1998.
- "Fulfilment." Forerunner 5:3 (1914): 57-61. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995.
- "If I Were a Man." Physical Culture 32 (1914): 31-34. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 262-268.
- "Mr. Peebles's Heart." Forerunner 5:9 (1914): 225-29. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 269-276.
- "Dr. Clair's Place." Forerunner 6:6 (1915): 141-45. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 295-303.
- "Girls and Land." Forerunner 6:5 (1915): 113-117. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 286-294.
- "Herland." The Forerunner 6 (1915); NY: Pantheon Books, 1979.
- "Mrs. Merrill's Duties." Forerunner 6:3 (1915): 57-61. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 277-285.
- "A Surplus Woman." Forerunner 7:5 (1916): 113-18. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 304-313.
- "Joan's Defender." Forerunner 7:6 (1916): 141-45. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Other Stories. Ed. Robert Shulman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 314-322.
- "The Girl in the Pink Hat." Forerunner 7 (1916): 39-46. The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader. Ed. Ann J. Lane. NY: Pantheon, 1980. 39-45.
- "With Her in Ourland: Sequel to Herland." Forerunner 7 (1916); Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997.
Novels and Novellas
- What Diantha Did. Forerunner. 1909-10.
- The Crux. Forerunner. 1911.
- Moving the MountainMoving the Mountain (novel)Moving the Mountain is a feminist utopian novel written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was published serially in Perkins Gilman's periodical The Forerunner and then in book form, both in 1911. The book was one element in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that marked the later...
. Forerunner. 1911. - Mag-Marjorie. Forerunner. 1912.
- Benigna Machiavelli. Forerunner. 1914.
- HerlandHerland (novel)Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis . The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination...
. Forerunner. 1915. - With Her in OurlandWith Her in OurlandWith Her in Ourland: Sequel to Herland is a feminist novel written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and originally published in 1916 in Gilman's self-authored and edited periodical The Forerunner...
. Forerunner. 1916. - Unpunished. Eds. Catherine J. Golden and Denise D. Knight. New York: Feminist Press, 1997.
Drama/Dialogues
The majority of Gilman's dramas are inaccessible as they are only available from the originals. Some were printed/reprinted in the Forerunner, however.- "Dame Nature Interviewed on the Woman Question as It Looks to Her" Kate Field's Washington (1890): 138-40.
- "The Twilight." Impress (10 Nov 1894): 4-5.
- "Story Studies," Impress 17 Nov 1894: 5.
- "The Story Guessers," Impress 24 Nov 1894: 5.
- "Three Women." Forerunner 2 (1911): 134.
- "Something to Vote For." Forerunner 2 (1911) 143-53.
- "The Ceaseless Struggle of Sex: A Dramatic View." Kate Field's Washington. 9 April 1890, 239-40.
Book-Length
- His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers. NY and London: Century Co., 1923; London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1924; Westport: Hyperion Press, 1976.
- Gems of Art for the Home and Fireside. Providence: J. A. and R. A. Reid, 1888.
- Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1898.
- Concerning Children. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1900.
- The Home: Its Work and Influence. New York: McClure, Phillips, & Co., 1903.
- Human Work. New York: McClure, Phillips, & Co., 1904.
- The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture. New York: Charton Co., 1911.
- Our Brains and What Ails Them. Serialized in Forerunner. 1912.
- Social Ethics. Serialized in Forerunner. 1914.
- His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers. New York and London: Century Co., 1923.
- Our Changing Morality. Ed. Freda Kirchway. NY: Boni, 1930. 53-66.
Short and serial non-fiction
- "Why Women Do Not Reform Their Dress." Woman's Journal 9 Oct 1886: 338.
- "A Protest Against Petticoats." Woman's Journal 8 Jan 1887: 60.
- "The Providence Ladies Gymnasium." Providence Journal 8 (1888): 2.
- "How Much Must We Read?" Pacific Monthly 1 (1889): 43-44.
- "Altering Human Nature." California Nationalist 10 May 1890: 10.
- "Are Women Better Than Men?" Pacific Monthly 3 (1891): 9-11.
- "A Lady on the Cap and Apron Question." Wasp 6 June 1891: 3.
- "The Reactive Lies of Gallantry." Belford's ns 2 (1892): 205-8.
- "The Vegetable Chinaman." Housekeeper's Weekly 24 June 1893: 3.
- "The Saloon and Its Annex." Stockton Mail 4 (1893): 4.
- "The Business League for Women." Impress 1 (1894): 2.
- "Official Report of Woman's Congress." Impress 1 (1894): 3.
- "John Smith and Armenia." Impress 12 Jan 1895: 2-3.
- "The American Government." Woman's Column 6 June 1896: 3.
- "When Socialism Began." American Fabian 3 (1897): 1-2.
- "Causes and Uses of the Subjection of Women." Woman's Journal 24 Dec 1898: 410.
- "The Automobile as a Reformer." Saturday Evening Post 3 June 1899: 778.
- "Esthetic Dyspepsia." Saturday Evening Post 4 Aug 1900: 12.
- "Ideals of Child Culture." Child Stude For Mothers and Teachers. Ed Margaret Sangster. Philadelphia: Booklovers Library, 1901. 93-101.
- "Should Wives Work?" Success 5 (1902): 139.
- "Fortschritte der Frauen in Amerika." Neues Frauenleben 1:1 (1903): 2-5.
- "The Passing of the Home in Great American Cities." Cosmopolitan 38 (1904): 137-47.
- "The Beauty of a Block." Independent 14 July 1904: 67-72.
- "The Home and the Hospital." Good Housekeeping 40 (1905): 9.
- "Some Light on the [Single Woman's] 'Problem.'" American Magazine 62 (1906): 4270428.
- "Social Darwinism." American Journal of Sociology 12 (1907): 713-14.
- "A Suggestion on the Negro Problem." American Journal of Sociology 14 (1908): 78-85.
- "How Home Conditions React Upon the Family." American Journal of Sociology 14 (1909): 592-605.
- "Children's Clothing." Harper's Bazaar 44 (1910): 24.
- "On Dogs." Forerunner 2 (1911): 206-9.
- "How to Lighten the Labor of Women." McCall's 40 (1912): 14-15, 77.
- "What 'Love' Really Is." Pictorial Review 14 (1913): 11, 57.
- "Gum Chewing in Public." New York Times 20 May 1914:12:5.
- "A Rational Position on Suffrage/At the Request of the New York Times, Mrs. Gilman Presents the Best Arguments Possible in Behalf of Votes for Women." New York Times Magazine 7 Mar 1915: 14-15.
- "What is Feminism?" Boston Sunday Herald Magazine 3 Sept 1916: 7.
- "The Housekeeper and the Food Problem." Annals of the American Academy 74 (1917): 123-40.
- "Concerning Clothes." Independent 22 June 1918: 478, 483.
- "The Socializing of Education." Public 5 April 1919: 348-49.
- "A Woman's Party." Suffragist 8 (1920): 8-9.
- "Making Towns Fit to Live In." Century 102 (1921): 361-366.
- "Cross-Examining Santa Claus." Century 105 (1922): 169-174.
- "Is America Too Hospitable?" Forum 70 (1923): 1983-89.
- "Toward Monogamy." Nation 11 June 1924: 671-73.
- "The Nobler Male." Forum 74 (1925): 19-21.
- "American Radicals. New York Jewish Daily Forward 1 (1926): 1.
- "Progress through Birth Control." North American Review 224 (1927): 622-29.
- "Divorce and Birth Control." Outlook 25 Jan 1928: 130-31.
- "Feminism and Social Progress." Problems of Civilization. Ed. Baker Brownell. NY: D. Van Nostrand, 1929. 115-42.
- "Sex and Race Progress." Sex in Civilization. Eds. V. F. Calverton and S. D. Schmalhausen. NY: Macaulay, 1929. 109-23.
- "Parasitism and Civilized Vice." Woman's Coming of Age. Ed. S. D. Schmalhausen. NY: Liveright, 1931. 110-26.
- "Birth Control, Religion and the Unfit." Nation 27 Jan 1932: 108-109.
- "The Right to Die." Forum 94 (1935): 297-300.
Selected Lectures
There are 90 reports of the lectures that Gilman gave in The United States and Europe.- "Club News." Weekly Nationalist 21 June 1890: 6. [Re. "On Human Nature."]
- "With Women Who Write." San Francisco Examiner. March 1891, 3:3. [Re. "The Coming Woman."]
- "Safeguards Suggested for Social Evils." San Francisco Call 24 April 1892: 12:4.
- "The Labor Movement." Alameda County Federation of Trades, 1893. Alameda County, CA Labor Union Meetings. 2 September 1892.
- "Announcement." Impress 1 (1894): 2. [Re. Series of "Talks on Social Questions."]
- "All the Comforts of a Home." San Francisco Examiner. 22 May 1895: 9. [Re. "Simplicity and Decoration."]
- "The Washington Convention." Woman's Journal 15 Feb 1896: 49-50. [Re. California.]
- "Woman Suffrage League." Boston Advertiser 10 Nov 1897: 8:1. [Re. "The Economic Basis of the Woman Question."]
- "Bellamy Memorial Meeting." American Fabian 4: (1898): 3.
- "An Evening With Kipling." Daily Argus 14 March 1899: 4:2.
- "Scientific Training of Domestic Servants." Women and Industrial Life Vol 6 of International Congress of Women of 1899. Ed Countess of Aberdeen. London: T. Unwin Fisher, 1900. 109.
- "Society and the Child." Brooklyn Eagle 11 Dec 1902: 8:4.
- "Woman and Work/ Popular Fallacy that They are a Leisure Class, Says Mrs. Gilman." New York Tribune 26 Feb 1903: 7:1.
- "A New Light on the Woman Question." Woman's Journal 25 April 1904: 76-77.
- "Straight Talk by Mrs. Gilman is Looked For." San Francisco Call 16 July 1905: 33:2.
- "Women and Social Service." Warren: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1907.
- "Higher Marriage Mrs. Gilman's Plea." New York Times 29 Dec 1908: 2:3.
- "Three Women Leaders in Hub." Boston Post 7 Dec 1909: 1:1-2 and 14:5-6.
- "Warless World When Women's Slavery Ends.' San Francisco Examiner 14 Nov 1910: 4:1.
- "Lecture Given by Mrs. Gilman." San Francisco Call 15 Nov 1911: 7:3. [Re. "The Society-- Body and Soul."]
- "Mrs. Gilman Assorts Sins." New York Times 3 June 1913: 3:8
- "Adam the Real Rib, Mrs. Gilman Insists." New York Times. 19 Feb 1914: 9:3.
- "Advocates a 'World City.'" New York Times 6 Jan 1915: 15:5. [Re. Arbitration of diplomatic disputes by an international agency.]
- "The Listener." Boston Transcript 14 April 1917: 14:1. [Re. Announcement of lecture series.]
- "Great Duty for Women After War." Boston Post 26 Feb 1918: 2:7.
- "Mrs. Gilman Urges Hired Mother Idea." New York Times 23 Sept 1919: 36:1-2.
- "Eulogize Susan B. Anthony." New York Times 16 Feb 1920: 15:6. [Re. Gilman and others eulogize Anthony on the centenary of her birth.]
- "Walt Whitman Dinner." New York Times 1 June 1921: 16:7. [Gilman speaks at annual meeting of Whitman Society in New York.]
- "Fiction of America Being Melting Pot Unmasked by CPG." Dallas Morning News 15 Feb 1926: 9:7-8 and 15:8.
Diaries, Journals, Biographies, and Letters
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Making of a Radical Feminist. Mary A. Hill. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980.
- Endure: The Diaries of Charles Walter Stetson. Ed. Mary A. Hill. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.
- A Journey from Within: The Love Letters of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1897-1900. Ed. Mary A. Hill. Lewisburg: Bucknill UP, 1995.
- To Herland and Beyond: The Life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Ann J. Lane. New York: Pantheon, 1990.
- The Diaries of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 2 Vols. Ed. Denise D. Knight. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994.
Autobiography
- The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography. New York and London: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1935; NY: Arno Press, 1972; and Harper & Row, 1975.
Further Resources
- Allen, Judith (2009). The Feminism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Sexualities, Histories, Progressivism, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-226-01463-0
- Berman, Jeffrey. “The Unrestful Cure: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and `The Yellow Wallpaper. The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper. Ed. Catherine Golden. New York: Feminist Press, 1992. 211-41.
- Carter-Sanborn, Kristin. “Restraining Order: The Imperialist Anti-Violence of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Arizona Quarterly 56.2 (Summer 2000): 1-36.
- Ceplair, Larry, ed. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Nonfiction Reader. New York: Columbia UP, 1991.
- Davis, Cynthia J. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography (Stanford University Press; 2010) 568 pages; major scholarly biography
- Davis, Cynthia J. and Denise D. Knight. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Her Contemporaries: Literary and Intellectual Contexts. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.
- Deegan, Mary Jo. “Introduction.” With Her in Ourland: Sequel to Herland. Eds. Mary Jo Deegan and Michael R. Hill. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997. 1-57.
- Eldredge, Charles C. Charles Walter Stetson, Color, and Fantasy. Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, The U of Kansas, 1982.
- Ganobcsik-Williams, Lisa. “The Intellectualism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Evolutionary Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity, and Gender.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer. Eds. Jill Rudd and Val Gough. Iowa City: U of Iowa P , 1999.
- Golden, Catherine. The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper. New York: Feminist Press, 1992.
- ---. “`Written to Drive Nails With’: Recalling the Early Poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer. Eds. Jill Rudd and Val Gough. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1999. 243-66.
- Gough, Val. “`In the Twinkling of an Eye’: Gilman’s Utopian Imagination.” In A Very Different Story: Studies on the Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Eds. Val Gough and Jill Rudd. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 1998. 129-43.
- Gubar, Susan. “She in Herland: Feminism as Fantasy.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Woman and Her Work. Ed. Sheryl L. Meyering. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989. 191-201.
- Hill, Mary Armfield. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Journey From Within.” In A Very Different Story: Studies on the Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Eds. Val Gough and Jill Rudd. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 1998. 8-23.
- Karpinski, Joanne B., “The Economic Conundrum in the Lifewriting of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Mixed Legacy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Ed. Catherine J. Golden and Joanne S. Zangrando. U of Delaware P, 2000. 35-46.
- Kessler, Carol Farley. “Dreaming Always of Lovely Things Beyond’: Living Toward Herland, Experiential foregrounding. In The Mixed Legacy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Eds. Catherine J. Golden and Joanna Schneider Zangrando. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2000. 89-103.
- Knight, Denise D. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Study of the Short Fiction, Twayne Studies in Short Fiction, Twayne Publishers, 1997.
- ---. “Introduction.” Herland, `The Yellow Wall-Paper’ and Selected Writings. New York: Penguin, 1999.
- Lane, Ann J. “Introduction.” Herland: A Lost Feminist Utopian Novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 1915. Rpt. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979
- ---. “The Fictional World of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader. Ed. Ann J. Lane. New York: Pantheon, 1980.
- Lanser, Susan S. “Feminist Criticism, `The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and the Politics of Color in America.” Rpt. “The Yellow Wallpaper”: Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Eds. Thomas L. Erskine and Connie L. Richards. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993. 225-256.
- Long, Lisa A. “Herland and the Gender of Science.” MLA Approaches to Teaching Gilman’s The Yellow Wall-Paper and Herland. Eds. Denise D. Knight and Cynthia J. David. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003. 125-132.
- Mitchell, S. Weir, M.D. “Camp Cure.” Nurse and Patient, and Camp Cure. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1877
- ---. Wear and Tear, or Hints for the Overworked.1887. New York: Arno Press, 1973.
- Oliver, Lawrence J. and Gary Scharnhorst. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman v. Ambrose Bierce:The Literary Politics of Gender in Fin-de-Siècle California.” Journal of the West (July 1993): 52-60.
- Palmeri, Ann. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Forerunner of a Feminist Social Science.” Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. Eds. Sandra Harding and Merrill B. Hintikka. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983. 97-120.
- Scharnhorst, Gary. Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Boston: Twayne, 1985.
- Scharnhorst, Gary, and Denise D. Knight. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Library: A Reconstruction.” Resources for American Literary Studies 23:2 (1997): 181-219.
- Stetson, Charles Walter. Endure: The Diaries of Charles Walter Stetson. Ed. Mary A. Hill. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1985.
- Tuttle, Jennifer S. “Rewriting the West Cure: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Owen Wister, and the Sexual Politics of Neurasthenia.” The Mixed Legacy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Eds. Catherine J. Golden and Joanna Schneider Zangrando. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2000. 103-121.
- Wegener, Frederick. “What a Comfort a Woman Doctor Is!’ Medical Women in the Life and Writing of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer. Eds. Jill Rudd & Val Gough. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1999. 45-73.
- Weinbaum, Alys Eve. “Writing Feminist Genealogy: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Racial Nationalism, and the Reproduction of Maternalist Feminism.” Feminist Studies 27 (Summer 2001): 271-30.
Listen to
- The Yellow Wallpaper, Suspense, CBS radio, 1948
- 2 short radio episodes of Gilman's writing, "California Colors" and "Matriatism" from California Legacy ProjectCalifornia Legacy ProjectThe California Legacy Project began in 2000 as a project at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA and later partnered with Heyday Books in Berkeley, CA. The project uses a research team of SCU interns to create radio scripts for the radio anthology "Your California Legacy" on KAZU 90.3 FM,...
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External links
- Essays by Charlotte Perkins Gilman at Quotidiana.org
- "A Guide for Research Materials"
- "Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Domestic Goddess"
- "Similar Cases" A poem by Gilman
- "Charlotte Perkins Gilman" Short biography and bibliography from Author's Calendar
- http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/gilman/suffrage/suffrage.html Suffrage Songs and Verses
- The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society