Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Born:	July 4, 1860
Died:	August 17, 1935
Occupation(s):	Short story and non-fiction writer, novelist, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer.
Magnum opus:	"The Yellow Wallpaper"

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3 1860 – August 17 1935) was a prominent American feminist, writer, lecturer, and social reformer during the early 1900s. She was born into the renowned Beecher family who numbered among their ranks: authoress and abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe and abolitionists ministers, Lyman Beecher and Henry Ward Beecher. Although her works went largely unnoticed for decades, interest in her writing was revived by adherents of women's studies in the 1970s. Her short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," which sparked a controversy in her day, is what she is, now, best remembered for. The story is a fictional account of her own struggle with depression and the subsequently misguided medical advice that she received. In an era when women were beginning to challenge traditional concepts about their role in society, Gilman advocated greater awareness in many areas of a woman's life.

Biography

Early life and first marriage

Gilman was born Charlotte Anna Perkins in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Mary Perkins (formerly Mary Fitch Westcott) and Frederic Beecher Perkins, a librarian and magazine editor, and nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her father abandoned the family, leaving his wife and daughter with his progressive aunts, who also included Catharine Beecher, and Isabella Beecher Hooker. Her mother was forced to move often and live with various relatives in order to support the family; as a result Perkins was largely schooled at home. She was a highly imaginative child who loved the fiction of Louisa May Alcott, but her mother discouraged her writing and living in a "dream world." However, she was to be deeply influenced by her reform minded aunts who encouraged friendships with other females within their intellectual circle. Her best friend was Grace Channing, granddaughter of the eminent Unitarian thinker William Ellery Channing.

After two years at the Rhode Island School of Design, Gilman supported herself as a greeting-card artist. In 1884, Charles Walter Stetson, a fellow artist repeatedly asked for her hand in marriage and, although she had misgivings, she felt it was her duty to conform to societal expectations. Her only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born that same year. Adjustment to marriage and motherhood was difficult for Perkins and she suffered from depression, which would periodically return throughout her life.

In 1885 she traveled alone to California to visit Grace Channing leaving her husband and daughter behind. She would return there after separating from her husband in 1891 where she became involved in the Nationalist Club, a reform movement that centered around Edward Bellamy's utopian novel, Looking Backward (written in 1888). Her husband came to California in attempt to reconcile with her, but in 1894, after their divorce was finalized, he ended up marrying her friend Channing. Subsequently her daughter went to live with her father and stepmother which, in that time, ignited a public scandal.

She began to earn a living through publication of her poetry and short stories, and became active on the lecture circuit, mostly promoting the ideas of socialization of the home, a recurrent theme of Perkins throughout her life and career.

Writing and lecturing

Perkins Gilman had gained international fame with the publication of Women and Economics in 1898. It was widely read in both North America and Europe and was subsequently tanslated into seven languages. The premise of the book states that maternal and domestic roles are overemphasized for women and true freedom comes in the form of economic liberation for a woman. Its philosophy reflects Gilman's view of a utopian society and the influence of both Marixt theory and Social Darwinism.

In CONCERNING CHILDREN (1900) Gilman advocated professional child-care.

Her second marriage—from 1900 to his death in 1934—was to her first cousin, New York lawyer George Houghton Gilman.

The Impress, a literary weekly published by the Pacific Coast Women's Press Association, and published an experimental series of stories, in which she imitated the style of such well-known authors as Louisa May Alcott, Hathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mark Twain. Gilman's first book was IN THIS OUR WORLD (1893), a collection of satiric poems with feminist themes.

In 1909 Gilman founded the literary magazine, "Forerunner," which published short stories, essays and book reviews. It also serialized Gilman's novels: Herland a romantic utopian novel, whose story line was influenced by Edward Bellamy's own utopian novel Looking Backward. In 1915 she founded the Women's Peace Party along with Jane Addams.

End of Life

In 1922, Gilman moved from New York to Norwich, Connecticut, where she wrote her social critique, the book His Religion and Hers. According to one biographer, Gilman was a Deist and "she foresaw that women... would someday form a religion that would focus on crating a paradise on earth.

Ten years later, having moved back to Pasadena—following the death of her husband (1934), and in order to be closer to her daughter—she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The cancer was inoperable, and she committed suicide on August 17 1935, by inhaling chloroform. Her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman was published posthumously.

Critical appreciation

"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."

Bibliography

• The Yellow Wallpaper (1890)
• In This World (1893)
• Women and Economics (1898)
• Concerning Children (1900)
• The Home, Its Work And Influence (1903)
• Human Work (1904)
• Forerunner (magazine)|Forerunner (monthly journal with prose - 1909-1916)
• The Crux (1910)
• Moving the Mountain (1911)
• The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture (1911)
• Our Brains and What Ails Them (1912)
• Humanness (novel)|Humanness (1913)
• Benigna Machiavelli (1914)
• Social Ethics: Sociology and the Future of Society (1914)
• The Dress of Women (1915)
• Herland (novel)|Her Land (1915)
• Growth and Combat (1916)
• With Her in Our Land (1916)
• His Religion and Hers (1922)
• What Diantha Did
• The living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: an autobiography (posthumous - 1987)

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• The New Encyclopedia Britannica "Gilman, Charlotte Anna Perkins." Vol. 5 2002.
• "Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Historic World Leaders. Gale Research, 1994. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
• "Charlotte Perkins Gilman." American Decades. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman:The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories, edited with an introduction by Robert Shulman. Oxford World's Classics, 1998.

External links

• Works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Project Gutenberg, Retrieved April 4, 2007.
• "Similar Cases by Charlotte Gilman", About, Retrieved April 4, 2007.
• "Charlotte Perkins Gilman", Books and Writers, Retrieved April 4, 2007.

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