When I Was a Witch

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, into a once-prominent family that had fallen on hard times. Her father, a relative of Harriet Beecher Stowe, abandoned the family when Charlotte was still a child. She received little formal education and moved frequently, but developed a deep love for books and ideas through self-study. Her breakthrough came with the 1892 short story The Yellow Wallpaper, a chilling, semi-autobiographical portrait of a woman's descent into madness, inspired by Gilman's own experience with postpartum depression and the oppressive "rest cure" prescribed to her. The story later became a landmark of feminist literature and psychological insight. In 1894, Gilman made headlines by separating from her husband, artist Charles Walter Stetson, and later allowing him and his new wife (her close friend) to raise their daughter. Though unconventional, the decision reflected her belief in rational, compassionate solutions over societal expectation. In 1900, she married her cousin Houghton Gilman, forming a supportive and egalitarian partnership. A public intellectual and reformer, Gilman lectured across the U.S. and Europe, advocating for women's autonomy, economic independence, and communal child care. Her major theoretical work, Women and Economics (1898), argued that women's economic dependence was the root of gender inequality and proposed visionary social reforms. She continued writing essays, novels, and utopian fiction, including the Herland trilogy, which imagined a peaceful, all-female society thriving without men. Her works blended critique with optimism, challenging the norms of her era and proposing bold alternatives. Diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 1932, Gilman ended her life by suicide in 1935, stating that she chose chloroform "over cancer." Throughout her life, she remained committed to reason, freedom, and reform. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is remembered as one of the most original feminist voices of her time, a pioneer who reshaped conversations around gender, mental health, and the structure of society.