Gilman, Charlotte Perkins

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 1860–1935, American feminist and reformer, b. Hartford, Conn.; great-granddaughter of Lyman Beecher. Prominent as a lecturer and writer on the labor movement and feminism, she edited the Forerunner, a liberal journal. She wrote many works on social and economic problems, the most important of which is Women and Economics (1898, repr. 1970). Incurably ill, she committed suicide.

Bibliography

See her autobiography (1935).

---

Gilman, Charlotte (Anna) Perkins (Stetson)

(born July 3, 1860, Hartford, Conn., U.S.—died Aug. 17, 1935, Pasadena, Calif.) U.S. feminist theorist, writer, and lecturer. She gained worldwide fame as a lecturer on women, ethics, labour, and society. In her best-known work, Women and Economics (1898), she proposed that women's sexual and maternal roles had been overemphasized to the detriment of their social and economic potential and that only economic independence could bring true freedom. Her other works include the celebrated short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1899).