Research Guides: Charlotte Perkins Gilman Collections: Home

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Start your archival research on Charlotte Perkins Gilman with this guide.

A socialist and deist, Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an independent thinker, author, and speaker who was an intellectual leader of the women's movement from the late 1890s through the mid-1920s. Often known for her short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” Gilman also wrote nonfiction works about the social and economic position of women. Additionally, she published a magazine called The Forerunner. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Gilman was a great-granddaughter of Lyman Beecher. She grew up mainly in Providence, Rhode Island, and in 1884 married Charles Walter Stetson, an artist. They had one daughter, Katharine Stetson Chamberlin, and were divorced in 1894. In the 1890s Gilman lived in California. After her marriage (1900) to Houghton Gilman, a lawyer, and a cousin, she lived in New York City and then in Norwich, Connecticut. She died in Pasadena.

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Digitized Archival Collections

The Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is the primary repository for the papers of early 20th-century American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935). To celebrate the sesquicentennial of Gilman's birth, the Schlesinger Library digitized Gilman's papers, with the generous help of the Cynthia Green Colin '54 Fund.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Papers, 1846-1961 (177)
Correspondence, diaries, journals, manuscripts, articles, reviews, photos, and drawings provide information about Gilman's personal and public life. The largest group of letters (1897-1900) is to her future second husband, George Houghton Gilman. Other correspondence includes a sizable group to her daughter Katharine between 1895 and 1934; letters from William Dean Howells, Jane Addams, Edward Bellamy, Susan B. Anthony, James Keir Hardie, and Florence Kelley; and items pertaining to her books and articles. Literary material includes manuscripts and typescripts of chapters for Sex in Civilization (1929) and Woman's Coming of Age (1930); the plays A Pretty Idiot (1889), Changing Hands (ca. 1890), and Three Women; and the books Social Ethics, A Study in Ethics (1933), and A Winter in California.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman Papers, 1846-ca. 1975 (MC 588)
Addenda to the papers of Charlotte Perkins Gilman consist mainly of family correspondence, photographs, poems, and printed material. Correspondence includes love poems and courtship letters to and from Charles Walter Stetson, her first husband, and letters to and from her daughter Katharine, who was raised by Stetson and his second wife, Grace Ellery Channing. Also included are genealogies, Gilman's 1894 divorce decree from Stetson, and clippings and ephemera from Gilman's lectures.
Letter of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1908 (A/G487)
This collection contains a manuscript letter from Gilman to James P. Munroe confirming Gilman's speaking engagement on "economic independence" at Munroe's Social Education Conference, to be held in March 1908.
Papers, 1894-1939 (A/G487a)
This collection contains four letters from Gilman to Harriet Park Kobold, daughter of suffragist Alice Park, concerning writing, child rearing, her new life in California, and widowhood (1929-35). It also includes articles by and about Gilman, broadsides publicizing her lectures, and a photograph of her.
Papers, 1899-1992 (A/G487b)
This collection contains the typescript of a story, “The Rocking Chair”; an 1899 letter (signature indecipherable) to Small and Maynard, publishers of Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper,” comparing the literary merits of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Rocking Chair”; and letters from the donor describing the provenance of the documents.
Papers, 189? (A/G487d)
This collection consists of a flyer advertising Gilman's lectures and a broadside entitled “The Burden of Mothers: A Clarion Call to Redeem the Race!”

Related Archival Collections - Not Yet Digitized

Items removed from books of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1872-2009 (A/G487f)
This collection consists of items removed from a collection of books owned by Gilman's grandson Walter Chamberlin. They include clippings, theater programs, notes, poems, and other materials.
Grace Ellery Channing Papers, 1806-1973 (83-M201)
Channing was Gilman’s lifelong friend and the second wife of Gilman's first husband. This collection includes correspondence with Gilman and plays written with Gilman.
Grace Ellery Channing Additional Papers, 1884-1976 (MC 626)
This collection includes correspondence with Gilman’s daughter (Channing’s stepdaughter), Katharine Beecher (Stetson) Chamberlin, as well as letters concerning the administration of Gilman’s estate. It also contains two poems and a letter by Gilman.
Charles Walter Stetson Papers, 1881-1888 (93-M76)
A painter best known for his landscapes of California and Italy, Stetson was married first to feminist and author Charlotte Perkins Gilman (they were divorced in 1894) and later to author Grace Ellery Channing. He and Gilman had one daughter, Katharine Beecher Stetson Chamberlin, who later lived with Grace and Charles Stetson. This collection consists of Stetson’s journals, photographs of his paintings, articles, and correspondence.
Katharine Beecher Stetson Papers, 1885-1979 (MC 838)
Sculptor and landscape painter Katharine Beecher Stetson was Gilman’s daughter. This collection includes letters, artwork, financial documents, and diaries of Grace Ellery Channing, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Charles Walter Stetson, Katharine Beecher Stetson, and their family members. A number of Katharine Beecher Stetson's baby clothes, handmade by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, are included. Also included is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Bible, her mother Mary A. Perkins's recipe book (1827), and her grandmother Clarissa F. Perkins's commonplace book (1826).