Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an American sociologist, writer, lecturer, and social reformist. As a child, Gilman was often in the presence of her father s relatives, notably Isabella Beecher Hooker, a well-known suffragist, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom s Cabin. Many of Gilman s own works reflect similarly feminist and social reformist perspectives, and in 1909 she established The Forerunner, a magazine that acted as a forum for discussion of these issues. Gilman s most famous work is The Yellow Wallpaper, a semi-autobiographical short story written in response to being put on rest cure by a doctor to cure her depression. Gilman s works also include the poetry collection In This Our World, and the feminist texts Women and Economics and The Home: Its Work and Influence. She died in 1935.