1. THE LIFE OF CHARLOTTE PERKINS
By Alliene Pinedo

2. CHILDHOOD
•Born on July 3, 1860 in
Hartford, Connecticut, but
spent most of her childhood
in Providence, Rhode Island
•Abandoned by her father
Frederick Perkins soon after
her birth (also a writer)
•Mothered by Mary Perkins,
who was said to be
unaffectionate (noted in
“Autobiography of Charlotte
Perkins Gilman”)
•Had a poor upbringing
•Ironically often surrounded
by aunts from father’s side
Isabella Beecher Hooker
(suffragist) and Harriet
Beecher Stowe (author of
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”)
A Young Charlotte Perkins

3. EDUCATION
•Taught herself to read at the
age of five
•Attended seven different public
schools
•She was considered a “poor
student”
•Often frustrated teacher
because she did not live up to
her potential
•Attended the Rhode Island
School of Design
•Time in her life where she
rekindled with her father
Rhode Island School of Design

4. ADULTHOOD/MARRIAGE
•In 1884 she married fellow
artist Charles Walter Stetson
•In 1885 they had a daughter,
Katherine Beecher Stetson
•Soon after her daughter’s
Katherine’s birth she fell into
sever post-partum depression
(suffered a nervous breakdown)
•She was treated by Dr. Silas
Weir Mitchell (psychologist)
whom tried to cure her through
the “rest cure” (she was
instructed to stop writing,
painting, working, etc.)
•In 1888 not able to go on with
her limited lifestyle she divorced
Charles and moved with her
daughter to Pasadena, CA
Charles Walter Stetson
Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell

5. SWEET VICTORY
•Nearly 20 years later after her divorce
Perkins wrote “The Yellow Wall Paper” in
1913 which was based on her personal fight
against depression and the lifestyle she was
condemned to by Dr. Silas and her husband
•The “rest cure” was the opposite of what
Perkin’s needed, but her ideas were shunned
by Dr. Silas as well as her husband
•It has been said that Perkins sent a copy of
the short story to Dr Silas
•Most famous piece of writing
“Just what the Doctor ordered”

6. ARTISTIC VIEWS OF “THE YELLOW
WALL PAPER”

7. CAREER
• Soon after she moved to California she became active in many different groups such as
feminist, socialist, nationalist, and suffrage groups
• In 1896 she represented California at the Suffrage convention as well as the
International Socialist and Labor Congress
• In 1890 she joined a Nationalist group to help end “capitalism”
• Held lectures regarding Nationalism
• Feminist organizations- Woman's Alliance, Economic Club, Ebell Society, Pacific Coast
Woman’s Press Association
1896 convention of the National American
Women's Suffrage Association

8. RELATED WORKS
• Best seller- Woman and
Economics: A study of the
Economic Relation Between Men
and Women as a Factor in Social
Relations (made her highly
successful and was translated into
seven different languages)
•Concerning Children
•The Home: It’s Work and Influence
•Forerunner- monthly journal based
on social problems primarily written
by Perkins
•Suffrage Songs and Versus
•Moving the Mountain
•Herland
•What Diantha Did
Symbol for Planet Venus/
Woman’s rights

9. RELATED QUOTES
•The first duty of a human being is to
assume the right functional relationship to
society--more briefly, to find your real job,
and do it.”
“To swallow and follow, whether old
doctrine or new propaganda, is a
weakness still dominating the human
mind.”
"It is not that women are really smaller-
minded, weaker-minded, more timid and
vacillating, but that whosoever, man or
woman, lives always in a small, dark
place, is always guarded, protected,
directed and restrained, will become
inevitably narrowed and weakened by it.”
"A house does not need a wife any more
than it needs a husband."

10. THE END
•As the years went on Perkins
continued to stay involved in
reformist groups, writing, and
lecturing
•In 1900 she married her cousin
George Houghton Gillman who
died suddenly from a cerebral
hemorrhage
•In 1932 Perkins was diagnosed
with inoperable breast cancer
•She killed herself in 1935
"When all usefulness is over, when
one is assured of an unavoidable
and imminent death, it is the
simplest of human rights to choose
a quick and easy death in place of
a slow and horrible one"