"The most original and challenging mind which the [women's] movement produced." --Carrie Chapman Catt
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 1935) was a leading figure in the women s movement of the early twentieth century. Gilman s most famous work, The Yellow Wall-Paper, was based on her own experiences with postpartum depression and launched her into the national spotlight. Her subsequent work was built on her belief that women are not only the equal of men but in many ways their superiors. Gilman died in 1935 as the result of a breast cancer diagnosis. Having been diagnosed with inoperable breast cancer, she wrote that she preferred chloroform to cancer.