Radcliffe: The Sixth International Charlotte Perkins Gilman Conference

Date: 

Sat - Sun, Jun 13 to Jun 14, 8:30am - 12:15pm

Location: 

Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge MA

“Gilman and the Archive”

The Sixth International Charlotte Perkins Gilman Conference will take place in June 2015 at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is a cosponsor of the conference. The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Radcliffe holds a rich collection of Gilman’s papers, including letters, drawings, and the entire run of her periodical, The Forerunner. A selection of Gilman-related materials will be exhibited as part of the conference.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a descendent of the prominent New England Beecher family, was an author, journalist, editor, and lecturer. Although she is best known for her story “The Yellow Wall Paper” and her book Women and Economics: A Study in the Economic Relation between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution, Gilman published more than a dozen books and edited her own periodical. Over the course of her prolific career, she helped shape the cultural conversation on a number of issues, including feminism, socialism, birth control, eugenics, interior design, and animal rights. Her biography, which involved the infamous “rest cure,” divorce, and suicide, also invites us to consider the available life narratives for public women at the fin de siècle.

Registration required

Questions about the conference may be sent to CPGILMAN2015@gmail.com.

For the latest conference schedule, see the Radcliffe Website.