Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1860–1935
Photograph of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in profile, her hair pinned up, in a dark jacket
Photograph (about 1900)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father left the family when she was small, and she grew up poor. After her daughter was born she fell into a deep depression, and a famous doctor prescribed complete rest and told her never to touch a pen again. It nearly drove her mad.

She left her husband, moved to California, and wrote The Yellow Wallpaper about that cure. She became a well-known lecturer and writer on the lives of women, arguing that they should work and be paid for it, and wrote Women and Economics and a novel about a land without men, Herland.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman on the site

The Yellow WallpaperPublished in 1892 About 25 min read A young woman who has just had a baby is taken to a country house for the summer by her husband John, a doctor, who says she has a slight nervous illness and must rest. She is forbidden to work or write, and spends her days in an old nursery upstairs with barred windows and torn yellow wallpaper. She writes anyway, in secret, and begins to see something moving behind the pattern. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story was published in 1892.
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