Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) was an influential American writer, lecturer, and social reformer best known for her work on women’s rights, economic independence, and social theory. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, she built a career that spanned fiction, poetry, essays, and public speaking, using her writing to challenge the constraints placed on women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Gilman’s most famous short story, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), is widely regarded as a landmark work of feminist literature for its portrayal of a woman’s psychological decline under oppressive “rest cure” medical treatment and rigid domestic expectations. She also authored the nonfiction classic Women and Economics (1898) and edited the magazine The Forerunner, further cementing her role as a leading voice in American feminist thought and progressive-era debates about family, labor, and society.
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