Journal Entry 1 by cordelia-anne from Decatur, Georgia USA on Wednesday, November 10, 2004

In the 1970s, the Feminist Press of the City University of New York rescued The Yellow Wallpaper, a significant literary work by the pioneering feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, from obscurity. Written in the years after Gilman had a "nervous breakdown" and left her marriage and her child to form a career as a feminist journalist and lecturer, the story languished in anthologies until this 1973 edition with an excellent afterword by scholar Elaine R. Hedges brought it back into consciousness. Since then the story, Gilman's most outstanding literary contribution, has been studied in feminist and medical circles. Gilman (1860-1935) was a descendent of New England's prominent Beecher family, a relative of Harriett Beecher Stowe. However, she was born in an unstable marriage. Her father abandoned the family when she was just a child and Gilman grew up in poverty. To protect her daughters against the harshness of life, Hedges tells us, Gilman's mother became cold and young Charlotte was raised without much affection. Her first marriage to artist Charles Walter Stetson failed after she suffered from devastatiing post-partum depression and was subjected to the Victorian medically prescribed "rest cure" so aptly disparaged in The Yellow Wallpaper. After publishing The Yellow Wallpaper in 1892, Gilman went on to publish her most famous work, Women and Economics, an indictment of women's economic imprisonment in marriage and domestic life, in 1898. A busy lecturing and publishing career followed. She married her first cousin Houghton Gilman in 1900. This relationship apparently lasted. Sadly, in 1932 Gilman was diagnosed with breast cancer. She ended her own life, committing suicide, three years later when she was 75. I disagree with Hedges, who seems to find the suicide a courageous and fitting end to Gilman's life, "her final willed choice." Yes, Perkins Gilman was courageous in her questioning of women's role in society and her depiction of the sexist nature of the medical care of her times. She had the strength to recover from a difficult childhood and a terrible illness. I don't see her as a heroine in suicide or in abandoning her marriage however. She didn't choose to be abandoned by her father as a child and I'm sure she didn't choose post-partum depression. Though I'm glad this story is studied and I'm glad to know about Charlotte Perkins Gilman, I feel she's been lionized inappropriately for some of her choices. She coped with her tragedies as best she could but she certainly doesn't represent all women to me. Still, I admire her life and her work. The Yellow Wallpaper is magnificently done. It depicts a woman's entrapment in her role as an invalid brilliantly.

For further information I suggest CUNY's The Feminist Press and The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society:

http://www.feministpress.org/

http://www.cortland.edu/gilman/ 

Journal Entry 2 by cordelia-anne at Surprise for a fellow bookcrosser in Mason, Ohio, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases on Saturday, November 13, 2004

Released on Monday, November 15, 2004 at about 12:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at For a fellow bookcrosser in Mason, Ohio, A Bookbox Controlled Releases.

RELEASE NOTES:

For Guinaveve's Women's Rights project, The Yellow Wallpaper, a feminist classic. 

Journal Entry 3 by guinaveve from Mason, Ohio USA on Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Thank you, cordelia-anne! I appreciate this and the other 2 books that you included along with the bookmark. What a pleasant surprise in my mailbox!

I remember reading this book in school at over 10 years ago. I may read it again before sending it on in a bookbox I am trying to get organized.
 

Journal Entry 4 by guinaveve at postal release in You Go Girl Bookbox, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases on Thursday, January 13, 2005

Released 7 yrs ago (1/14/2005 UTC) at postal release in You Go Girl Bookbox, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

Enjoy! 

Journal Entry 5 by calvarez4 from Oakland, California USA on Wednesday, March 16, 2005

I have heard so much about Gilman, and have wanted to read this story for quite a while. I am currently taking it out of the bookbox, but I think I will likely release back into it in a few days, since this is such an essential text in the field of classic feminism. 

Journal Entry 6 by calvarez4 at postal release in You Go Girl Bookbox, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases on Friday, March 18, 2005

Released 7 yrs ago (3/18/2005 UTC) at postal release in You Go Girl Bookbox, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

I found The Yellow Wallpaper to be very moving. I am releasing this back into the You Go Girl bookbox -- this needs to be read as much as possible! 

Journal Entry 7 by jenm from Waterbury, Connecticut USA on Monday, April 04, 2005

This was in the "You Go, Girl" book box.