A prominent member of the literary Beechers of Hartford; her writing have had significant influence on the feminist movement.

Best known for her short story "The Yellow Wall-Paper," about a woman who suffers from a mental breakdown due to the birth of her child. Gilman was a woman who wrote thousands of works, from short journalism to book length discussions of the social realities of women's lives to poetry. Her book, Women and Economics, was hailed as a major accomplishment and re-published in several languages; Vassar college even used it as a textbook for a short time. Gilman's major concern during her lifetime was feminism-- women's suffrage as well as women's economic independence. She also self-published a magazine titled, The Forerunner, for seven years.

She was born Charlotte Anna Perkins, on July 3, 1860, in Hartford. Her mother was Mary Fitch Westcott, and her father was Frederic Beecher Perkins. This made Gilman the great granddaughter of Lyman Beecher, and the great-niece of Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Gilman's mother was told that she should have no other children-- soon after this, her father left the family alone. She married Charles Walter Stetson and their marriage was a rocky one-- eventually ending in a controversial divorce. They had one daughter, Katherine Beecher Stetson who was born March 23, 1885.