Born to a cultured family whose New England heritage dated back several generations, Charlotte Perkins nonetheless grew up poor and rootless. Her father abandoned the family soon after her birth and provided little support, leaving her mother to drift in search of work and charity. As a young adult, Perkins supported herself as an artist and teacher. Married at 23, she found domestic life unbearable and suffered a serious nervous breakdown. She gradually recovered, though elements of mental illness lingered throughout her life. Perkins soon settled into an independent career as lecturer and author which continued well into her 60s, foreswearing traditional feminine roles in her own life while criticizing them in her writing. She committed suicide in 1935, following her second husband's death and her own diagnosis with breast cancer.
Her best-known writings span several genres. The short story "The Yellow Wall-Paper" (1892) dealt with mental illness in semi-autobiographical fashion. In the "feminist manifesto" Women and Economics (1898), she argued for women's economic independence and active participation in political life. Herland (1915) used the utopian novel format to imagine a civilization guided by feminine values. Between 1909 and 1915, she wrote, edited and published the monthly journal Forerunner, which likewise blended fiction, philosophy, feminist politics and sociological analysis.
SOURCE: Notable American Women. |
