She gave birth to a daughter, Katharine Beecher Stetson, on March 25, 1885. Only a few weeks into her marriage, Charlotte found out she was pregnant.

Though Gilman worried that marriage may interfere with her ambitions to be a leader in social reform she agreed to Stetson’s marriage proposal, and they were married on (Scharnhorst, 1985, p.5). Gilman met Charles Walter Stetson, an artist, and soon after he proposed marriage. She used her family connections to distinguish herself when attempting to publish her first writings (see manuscripts, New York Public Library, 1886-1914). Additionally, Lyman Beecher, a famous Presbyterian minister and orator, was Gilman’s great grandfather. Gilman was also the grandniece of Henry Ward Beecher, a well-respected clergyman and president of the American Women’s Suffrage Association (Wheeler, 1995, p.75). After Charlotte’s father abandoned the family, Isabella and her sister Mary helped financially support the family and Isabella would later pay for Charlotte’s college education (University of Rochester, 2019). Gilman was the grandniece of Isabella Beecher Hooker. These connections helped her in identifying her own purpose to work for the betterment of mankind. Gilman had a number of influential social reformers in her family. Many of Gilman’s views about women, marriage, sex and economics can be traced back to her childhood. They lived with family, friends, and even joined “cooperative living experiments” in order to have their housing needs met (Allen, 2009, p.22). They remained completely uprooted, moving eighteen times in the fourteen years that followed the divorce (Scharnhorst, 1985, p.2). Frederick Perkins assumed no responsibility for the raising of his children or the support of his wife and as a result the family struggled to get by. After her father’s abandonment, Gilman was raised solely by her mother (Allen, 2009, p.22). Shortly after, her father abandoned his wife and children (Scharnhorst, 1985, p.1). After the death of their last child in infancy, the doctor informed Charlotte’s mother she could no longer have children. They were married in 1857 and over the course of three years they had three children, including Charlotte. Background InformationĬharlotte’s parents, Mary and Frederick Perkins, were distant cousins.

Her writings cover a wide array of feminist issues and were written with the purpose of advancing women’s rights. Gilman’s writings include eight novels (three of which are utopian romances), a multitude of articles, poems, and short stories, an autobiography and six books of essays. She was a prolific writer and, some would argue, the most influential feminist theorist of her time. Basic InformationĬharlotte Perkins Gilman was born to Mary Wescott Perkins and Frederick Beecher Perkins on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut (Scharnhorst,1985, p.1).

Charlotte gilman women and economics