Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman 3 Jul 1860 - 17 Aug 1935

Born Hartford, Connecticut

During an age when social conventions limited women’s opportunities, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman exposed the psychological distress behind the sentimental facade of domesticity. In 1892, she published “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story about a woman confined to a single attic room to recuperate from “temporary nervous depression” and “a slight hysterical tendency.” Those labels were often applied to women whose limited scope of activity led to extreme frustration and boredom. Gilman herself, while suffering from postpartum depression after giving birth in 1885, had been forced into a mind-numbing “rest cure,” which only worsened her condition.

Following her divorce in 1894, Gilman gained international recognition for her book Women and Economics (1898), which argues that women’s liberty is dependent on their economic freedom. Years earlier, before her rise to prominence, she sat for this portrait sketch by Ellen Day Hale, a pathbreaking artist who exemplified Gilman’s ideal of female independence.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution