1. Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1860-1935
By Kimberly Irwin

2. General Born in Hartford, Connecticut on July 3, 1860
Her father was Frederic Beecher Perkins, who was part of the famous New England Beecher family which included the novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe
Her mother was Mary A. Fitch
Gilman’s father deserted her family shortly after her birth
Her mother struggled to support herself and her two kids and withheld from them all physical expressions of love
Gilman described her childhood as painful and lonely

3. Professional
Between , Gilman supported herself in Providence as a governess, art teacher, and designer of greeting cards
She increasingly became aware of the injustices inflicted on women and began to write poems in which she developed her own views on women’s rights
Gilman was a frequent contributor to the Boston Woman’s Journal
Gilman led a double career as a writer and lecturer on women, labor, and social organization

4. Personal Life In May 1884, Gilman married artist Charles Stetson
Gilman feared the difficulties of balancing the demands of being a wife, mother, and housekeeper with her ambition to be a writer
Gilman had one daughter named Katherine
Gilman fell into a severe depression and underwent a series of unusual treatments for it
One treatment included total bed rest for several weeks and limited intellectual activity thereafter
Her experience with depression is believed to have inspired her best-known short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” (1892)
In 1894, Gilman divorced Stetson, convinced that the marriage threatened her sanity

5. Evolution of Work
In 1898, Gilman published Women and Economics, the book that earned her immediate celebrity and is considered her most important nonfiction work
This powerful feminist manifesto argues that women’s economic dependency on men stunts not only the growth of women but that of the whole human species
Gilman urged reforms of centralized nurseries in Concerning Children, 1900, and professionally staffed collective kitchens in The Home, 1904
In 1911, she published The Man Made World which stated that until women played a larger part in national and international life, social injustice and war would characterize industrialized societies
The same year, her short story “Turned” appeared, taking on similar gender issues

6. In His Religion and Hers (1923), Gilman predicted that only when women influenced theology would the fear of death and punishment cease to be central to religious institutions and practices
Her utopian novels—such as Moving the Mountains (1911), Herland (1915), and With Her in Ourland (1916)—offer vivid dramatizations of the social ills that result from a competitive economic system in which women are subordinate to men and accept their subordination

7. The End Gilman married her first cousin George Houghton Gilman in 1900
They lived in New York City and Norwich, Connecticut until his sudden death in 1934
Gilman then moved to Pasadena, California to live with her daughters family
She committed suicide the next year after learning that she had inoperable breast cancer

8. Characteristics
Resisted conventional values, especially about women socially and economically
Produced a large body of polemical writings and feminist fiction
Is known as a leading theoretician, speaker, and writer on women’s issues of her time
Wrote quickly and carelessly to make a point

9. Influences
Gilman lived at a time of tremendous upheaval in this country's history
She was alive from the Civil War to Reconstruction and Industrial Revolution, and from the Women's Movement to the development of the major schools of the social sciences
Unable to watch these events without scrutiny, she became a commentator on the evolving social order, especially on the status of women
She was influenced by the sociologist Lester Ward and the utopian novelist Edward Bellamy

10. Sources
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York: W. W. Norton, Print.
"Charlotte Anna Perkins Stetson Gilman." Bio. A&E Television Networks, Web. 10 July 2014.
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society, n.d. Web. 10 July 2014.