Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1860, Charlotte Perkins Gilman became one of the most influential feminist writers and lecturers in the United States. She wrote fiction, poetry, essays, and social criticism, and she is especially remembered for the haunting short story The Yellow Wallpaper and the groundbreaking nonfiction book Women and Economics.

Gilman’s writing grew out of lived experience as well as big political ideas. After suffering a severe breakdown following the birth of her daughter, she later drew on that experience in The Yellow Wallpaper, a story now widely read for its powerful portrait of confinement and mental distress. In her essays and lectures, she argued that women needed economic independence and fuller participation in public life.

She remained a prolific public thinker for decades, editing and writing for her own magazine, The Forerunner, and publishing novels, stories, and social commentary. Gilman died in Pasadena, California, in 1935, but her work continues to be read for its clarity, boldness, and lasting influence on feminist thought and American literature.