Getting to Know Gilman: Gilman's Background

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born July 3, 1860.  She was born into a family of Feminists, and this influenced her later in life.  While Gilman was growing up, women weren't treated the same as men.  Gilman had a hard childhood.  Her father left her when she was a child, and her mother had to raise her and her sister.  They moved around a lot and Gilman's education was impacted greatly because of this.  Gilman fond a love for writing. As a young adult,  Gilman married Charles Walter Stetson, a physician. After being married for many years, Gilman started to become depressed.  In the 1900s women were insane if they acted a certain way.  Gilman went to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and he diagnosed her with "manic-depressive illness"(The Yellow Wallpaper: An Autobiography of Emotions by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 3)   She was too sit in a room alone, she could not see her child, and she could not write.  "This experience is believed to have inspired her best-known short story "The Yellow Wall-Paper" (1892)." (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1) In the 1900s  they did not have the best cure for this, but it was the best for its time.  Women who had "manic-depressive illness" were told to sit alone in a locked room and shock themselves. Some women went insane sitting in a room for years on end.  Some like Gilman, were so mad that they committed suicide.  Gilman died on August 17, 1935. 

                                               
                                                  

   http://www.biography.com/people/charlotte-perkins-gilman-9311669- 
this is a biography of Gilman's life 

http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/gilman.html- 
all about Gilman
 

Gilman's Background: Born: July 3, 1860 
Died: August 17, 1935