Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1860-1935), was a leading writer and lecturer on women’s rights in the United States. Her best-known short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), describes a woman’s sense of imprisonment within domestic life. The story was based on an emotional disorder Gilman experienced in 1884. In her book Women and Economics (1898), Gilman urged women to work outside the home to gain economic independence.
Gilman criticized traditional domestic life and stressed the importance of satisfying work. She addressed these issues in Concerning Children (1900), The Home (1903), and Human Work (1904). In her novel Herland (1915), Gilman described what happened when three men discovered a race of females who had lived without men for 2,000 years. From 1909 to 1916, she published the Forerunner, a monthly magazine devoted to improving the position of women in society. Gilman was also active in the woman suffrage and peace movements.
Gilman was born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut. She died on Aug. 17, 1935.
