#14 Michael Kinard
1302/3
2-26-15
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
1860-1935
Suffered from depression
Married her first cousin Charlotte was raised by her mother because her father, who was related to the famous Beecher family, left when charlotte was just an infant. She studied art for a while and made a living by designing greeting cards and teaching. She married Charles Stetson and soon after began to suffer from depression. Charles introduced Charlotte to a well-known neurologist, S. Weir Mitchell, who told her that she would have to be put on bed rest and told to give up all dreams of a career. She followed this regimen for a while until she had a mental breakdown and ran away to a friend’s house in Pasadena, California. Gilman could barely manage to support her daughter Katherine and herself, so both parents agreed that she live with her father. After that the press continually attacked her saying she was an “unnatural mother”. She then married her first cousin, George Gilman, till 1934 when he died and she found out she had terminal cancer and died in 1935 after writing her last novel, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an autobiography. Her father was an accomplished librarian and writer who influenced Charlotte’s love of literature and dedication to intellectual pursuits throughout her life. Since her father left her as a child, Charlotte was surrounded by strong female figures for most of her life, which had an extremely profound impact on the way she thought about writing and