Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's career as a leading feminist and social activist translated into her writing as did her personal life. Gilman's treatment for her severe depression and feelings of confinement in her marriage were paralleled by the narrator in her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper".
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her parents, Mary Fitch Perkins and Fredrick Beecher Perkins, divorced in 1869. Her dad, a distinguished librarian and magazine editor, played a large role in her education, stressing science and history. Fitch was often away for long periods of time during her childhood, leaving his wife and children with other family members. This often exposed Gilman to her three great-aunts who, along

After their daughter died in 1884 Gilman became severely depressed. She went to neurologist S. Weir Mitchell for treatment of her depression where he prescribed her his "rest cure" which was complete bed rest and little intellectual activity. Gilman said that this experience drove her "near the border line of utter mental ruin." Her depression and the "rest cure" inspired her story "The Yellow Wallpaper" which was her best known work. Gilman attributed part her depression and emotional problems to the confines of her marriage and left her husband. After her separation, Gilman moved to California where she helped edit feminist publications, helped with the planning of the California Women's Congress in 1894 and 1895, and played a large role in founding the women's Peace Party. Gilman spent many years lecturing in the US and England on women's rights and labor reform. She published Women and Economics: A Study of the Economical Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor of Social Evolution in 1898 ("The Yellow Wallpaper" 278). Critics have compared Gilman to George Bernard Shaw, a fellow author. Her book Women and Economics was compared to the writing of John Stuart Mill by art critic John Ruskin and the London Chronicle (Korb

State laws prohibited women from going into business without their husband's approval, allowed the husband to decide where the family would live, and dictated that adultery was not considered sufficient grounds for divorce if committed by a man but was if committed by a woman. In 1869 the first organizations devoted to women's rights were founded. By 1890 these organizations claimed five-hundred thousand members. By 1890 there were more women than men in high school, but higher education was still not an option for most women. The only professions open to them were nursing and elementary education. In 1875 Minor vs Happensett took place; the Supreme Court ruled that the state could withhold the right to vote from women as they did from criminals and mentally insane. Women could not vote until the 19th amendment was passed in 1920. Gilman argued that women's lesser status in society, especially women's economic dependence on men, was the result of culturally enforced behavior rather than the the result of biological inferiority. Regarding her work in general, Gilman said, "one girl reads this, and takes fire! Her life is changed. She becomes a power- a mover of others- I write for her" ("The Yellow Wallpaper"