The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society Newsletter 

The Gilman Society was founded by Shelley Fisher Fishkin and Elaine Hedges in 1990. Spring 2012

Vol. XXII No. 1

President Sari Edelstein University of Massachusetts-Boston Executive Director Peter Betjemann Oregon State University Vice President for Publications Stefanie Sydelnik University of Rochester Website Administrator Heidi Silcox University of Oklahoma

From the President

links to many Gilman-related primary documents as well as numerous calls for papers that will be relevant to many of our members. You can even “like” us on Facebook! Finally, thank you to Stefanie Sydelnik for completing her first Gilman Society Newsletter. We are lucky to have such a devoted set of officers and Society members. I hope to see some of you at the upcoming Gilman panels, but you should also feel free to correspond with me electronically ([email protected]) with any questions or suggestions. Best wishes, Sari Edelstein President, Gilman Society Assistant Professor, Department of English University of Massachusetts-Boston From the Executive Director Dear Society Members:

May 1, 2012 Dear Gilman Society Members, I hope this newsletter finds you well and looking forward to a relaxing and productive summer. As always, the Gilman Society has a busy agenda. We will be hosting one panel at the upcoming American Literature Association conference in San Francisco in May. Thank you to our Executive Director, Peter Betjemann, for organizing and chairing the panel, “New Approaches to Gilman,” which will take place on Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 12pm, followed by our Society business meeting. This fall, the Gilman Society is sponsoring a panel at the Society for the Study of American Women Writers conference in late October in Denver; thank you to Jill Bergman for organizing the Gilman panel. Be sure to check the SSAWW website for details about the panel‟s time and location as the fall approaches. Beyond conferences, I want to draw your attention to the Gilman Society website (http://sites.google.com/site/gilmansociety), which continues to evolve, thanks to the dedication of Heidi Silcox, our website administrator, and contributors, Brandi So and Jacqueline Markham. The site now

Recipients of this newsletter are either current members of the Gilman Society or recently lapsed members. If the former, many thanks, as always! If the latter, I urge you to bring your membership up to date. Whether or not you are currently engaged in research on Gilman, or plan to present on a Societysponsored panel, membership dues allow the Society to promote the study of Gilman's oeuvre. Your continued support is very much appreciated. On the label for this newsletter, you'll find one of three designations: "life," "current," or "dues owed." The membership year runs from Sep 1-Aug 31, so if your label indicates "dues owed," and you pay now, you'll be caught up until this fall; if you'd prefer to send $20 and pay for the current year and next year, that's of course much appreciated. Thanks for your support of the Gilman Society. All members are warmly invited to attend the Gilman Society business meeting at the American Literature Association conference in San Francisco. The meeting will be held on Thursday 24 May, at 1:30 in the Pacific A room at the Hyatt Embarcadero. Sincerely, Peter Betjemann

Conference News Don‟t miss the Gilman Society sponsored panel at this year‟s American Literature Association Conference, May 24-27, 2012, San Francisco, CA: New Approaches to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Thursday, May 24, 12:00-1:20 p.m. (Session 3-C, Pacific E) Chair: Peter Betjemann, Oregon State University 1. “„As Sick as She Pleases‟: Ptolemaic Recentering in Critical Responses to „The YellowWall-Paper,‟” Stephen Lento, Fisher College 2. “Womanifestation, or, the Arabesque Takes Shape: Darwinian Embodiments in Charlotte Perkins Gilman‟s „The Yellow Wall-Paper,‟” William Hunt, Duke University 3. “Inside, Outside: Placing Gilman,” Jill Bergman, University of Montana

Gilman and Eugene Manlove Rhode by Gary Scharnhorst, University of New Mexico Among the gaps in the record of Gilman‟s life is her friendship with the western novelist Eugene Manlove Rhodes. In November and December 1912 Rhodes serialized a western in the Saturday Evening Post entitled “The Little Eohippus.”1 It was a formulaic horse opera with a twist: the cowboy hero carries with him a small carved turquoise Eohippus and he repeatedly declaims Gilman‟s poem “Similar Cases.” He calls it his “war-song.”2 Just as the poem tells how Eohippus gradually evolves into a horse, the hero slowly develops in the course of the narrative until he is fit to wed an eastern belle visiting New Mexico. The novel was subsequently revised slightly and published in book-form in 1914 under the titles Bransford of Rainbow Ridge and Bransford in Arcadia. Today the former title is available online for free at Google Books, the latter title for free at Project Gutenberg. Rhodes also cited Gilman‟s poem “An Obstacle” as the epigraph to chapter 17 of the novel, though he referred to her there as

Charlotte Perkins Stetson. He had apparently read her poetry in one of the editions of In This Our World published prior to her marriage to Houghton Gilman in 1900. In other words, it seems that Rhodes and Gilman were not acquainted before 1912. But then something inexplicable occurred, the details perhaps forever shrouded in a biographical blindspot: Gilman became one of Rhodes‟ most ardent boosters. In August 1919, in one of her columns for the New York Tribune syndicate, she mentions Rhodes, one of the few people she ever mentions by name in those columns, and quotes a line from one of his “delightful” westerns, The Desire of the Moth (1910).3 And in an essay for the Saturday Review for August 9, 1924, entitled “A Neglected Author” and hitherto lost to scholarship, she puffed his work. “In place, time, and character [Rhodes] is American of the Americans, mainly of the west when it was west, wild if not woolly, strong, brave, and efficient.” Gilman obviously subscribed to the notion that Anglo-Saxons tamed the wilderness. She did not defend Rhodes on ideological grounds: “He is no feminist, his women are just women, of a delightfulness; they have character enough, but are mainly delightful,”4 the adjective she had used five years earlier to describe Rhodes‟ western novels as a whole. Ellinor Hoffman, the heroine of The Little Eohippus, and Stella Vorhis, the heroine of The Desire of the Moth, two novels by Rhodes we can be confident Gilman read, are pasteboard characters like Molly Stark Wood, the eastern schoolmarm in The Virginian. There is no record Rhodes and Gilman ever met. Neither of them mentions the other in any diaries or correspondence known to survive. No letters they exchanged have ever been found. Only one scrap of paper exists to prove that they knew each other personally: Rhodes‟ inscription in a copy of his book Once in the Saddle and Paso por Aqui that he sent Gilman in 1927: “Charlotte Perkins Gilman with love from Gene Rhodes.”5 In any case, this is all that can be established about their friendship. Notes 1. “The Little Eohippus, or Bransford in Arcadia,” Saturday Evening Post, November 30 through December 28, 1912, passim. 2. Bransford in Arcadia (New York: Henry Holt, 1914), chapter 15, p. 212. 3. “The Beauty of the Earth,” Louisville Herald, 29 August 1919, 9; Buffalo Evening News, 29 August 1919, 7. 2

4. C. P. Gilman, “A Neglected Author,” Saturday Review, 9 August 1924, 8. 5. Denise D. Knight and Gary Scharnhorst, “Charlotte Perkins Gilman‟s Library: A Reconstruction,” Resources for American Literary Study, 23 (1997), p. 210.

Gilman on Armenia Three Articles from 1894, 1895, and 1904

By Carol Farley Kessler, Penn State Brandywine Who among us remembers Gilman‟s concern over the plight of Armenia and its residents during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth? Gary Scharnhorst, for one, who has noted three of her articles [as #930, #977, and #1241 respectively] in his Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Bibliography (1985). Also, the Armenian American poet and literary / historical scholar, Peter Balakian, praised Gilman‟s concern in Ch. 10, “‟Our Boasted Civilization‟: Intellectuals, Popular Culture, and the Armenian Massacres of the 1890s” even as he decried the overall insufficient effort of United States citizens in The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America‟s Response (2003). Herein he quotes from and discusses Gilman‟s article “International Duties” appearing in Armenia (1904). The trail that led me to writing this note began with Peter Balakian‟s Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir, in which an “American son uncovers his Armenian past” (1997). Twelve years later in 2009, the Philadelphia Museum of Art mounted a retrospective on the work of the ArmenianAmerican Surrealist Arshile Gorky (born Vosdanik Adoian, 1904-48), including an exhibition catalog, where mention of another piece by Balakian turned up, “Arshile Gorky and the Armenian Genocide” (Art in America [Feb 1996]: n.p.). Gorky, as a boy soldier, likely had run under crossfire to gather up shells that could then be reused by embattled Armenians. Much of his art encodes his boyhood life in Armenia, where his mother had finally starved. Also in 2009, Balakian published a translation of the memoir of his great-uncle, Grigoris Balakian (1875-1934), Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide 1915-1918 (2009). This memoir of an Armenian priest‟s experience provides a horrendous eyewitness account of his arrest in Constantinople, imprisonment near the

Black Sea, and forced march with hundreds from there to the region of Der Zor Desert [Deir elZor]. At this point in my reading, I returned to The Burning Tigris and then located two additional articles that Gilman had written on the subject. These three articles make clear her distress over events then occurring in Armenian Turkey: two appeared in The Impress: A Journal for Men and Women —a publication of the Pacific Coast Woman‟s Press Association [PCWPA]—and as noted above, the third in Armenia. In the earliest, “Who Massacred the Armenians” (Dec.1894), Gilman (then wife of Charles Walter Stetson, 1884-94) begins by lamenting “‟Armenian Atrocities‟ . . . . Hundreds and thousands of men, women, and children murdered under varying circumstances of horror adapted to age and sex—shot, burned, outraged, destroyed by the wholesale” (2). She continues, “Then you begin to wonder, if you have any sense of international ethics at all, why this criminal State is allowed to remain among comparatively enlightened and virtuous neighbors, and to continually rob and kill.” She closes by bravely taking on “Christian England” as the nation supporting “this sick man” Turkey and queries, “How should we feel toward such a champion? What should we do?”(2). She answers in her article “John Smith and Armenia” in the next month‟s Impress (Jan.1895). Stetson considers the responsibility of “the average citizen in any nation for the misbehavior of another nation” (2). She suggests that “America . . . [has] the power to arouse and accelerate action in either England or Russia” (2). And if this is so, then John Smith as a citizen also needs to “rouse America” (3). Stetson argues that we must “unite in the fostering of a great public sentiment, which can, by steady pressure, bring some help to these far off sufferers.” She later notes, “The feeling called „humanity,‟ in any wide sense, is a comparatively new one. . . . But it is growing among us, and, like all other functions, improves by exercise” (3). She finds a “very genuine connection between all members of the human family. . . . It is the national behavior of Turkey that concerns us here, not the private behavior of the Turks.“ As well as Europe, Gilman believes that “America, as a great nation, should have a voice in this matter. . . . John Smith is America [then under the Presidential leadership of Grover Cleveland between 1892-96]. . . . “[T]he character of our 3

private citizens [determines] our national character; . . . the people who compose the state can compel the state to act their will. . . . Let us become hotly interested in this murderous race whom England shelters and protects, and see to it that she enforce better behavior in her infamous protegee. And let John Smith—and Jane Smith also—make it their business to know and to feel the whole truth of the political situation involved in this question” (3). Some “hot interest” occurred a year later. Alice Stone Blackwell (1857-1950), reporting as “ASB,” the Recording Secretary at NAWSA‟s annual convention, wrote two articles: “National Convention” and “Officers & Resolutions” (The Woman‟s Journal, Feb.1, 1896: 36). In the former, Blackwell mentions that “Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson . . . . read several poems . . . , gave a lecture . . . , and preached twice. . . .” (col.3). In the latter, Blackwell records the approved Resolution 12: “That the frightful massacres perpetrated by the authorities of Turkey upon their unarmed and defenseless Armenian subjects, and the systematic policy of extermination of Christians throughout Asia Minor, calls for the intervention of united Christiandom, and we appeal to Congress to take prompt and effective measures for stopping these intolerable barbarities” (col.4). The evidence of Stetson‟s Impress articles suggests that she would have joined support for Resolution 12. Between 1896 and 1899, three entries from The Diaries of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1994: vol.2) indicate her contact with Armenian issues and people (I thank Denise D. Knight for locating the three). The entry for November 12, 1896, when Gilman was in England, indicates that at a “Big Woman Suffrage Meeting in evening [,] Lady Henry Somerset was to have spoken—had so engaged—but went off on Armenians. . . . I had a few moments also” (v.2: 645). A tantalizingly brief entry! One wonders whether Gilman made reference to the thoughts on British responsibilities that she had expressed in the two Impress articles just discussed. On October 9, 1898, likely staying with Alice Stone Blackwell and her father Henry in the Dorchester section of Boston, Gilman mentions a dinner guest, “a Mr. Salien—Armenian” (v.2: 746). A year later, on October 15, 1899, when she is apparently in Boston again staying with the Blackwells, she notes another Armenian supper guest, “one Mr. Galatrain [sic], I believe” (v.2: 797). Alice had

become immersed in matters Armenian as early as 1893 and in 1896 published an anthology of Armenian poems that she had translated into English. Balakian in The Burning Tigris discusses Alice‟s activities in Ch. 8: “„The Tears of Araxes‟: The Voice of the Woman‟s Journal.” The relationship between Charlotte and Alice— especially with regard to Armenia—begs for further investigation. At about the same time, in writing Women and Economics (1898; rpt.1966), Gilman placed the Armenian crisis within the context of her social thought. She wrote: “Human progress lies in the perfecting of the social organization, and it is here that the changes of our day are most marked. Whereas, in more primitive societies, injuries were only felt by the individual as they affected his [sic] own body or direct personal interests, and later his [sic] own nation or church, to-day there is a growing sensitiveness to social injuries, even to other nations. The civilized world has suffered in Armenia‟s agony, even though the machinery of social expression is yet unable fully to carry out the social feeling or the social will. Function comes before organ always; and the human heart and mind, which are the social heart and mind, must feel and think long before the social body can act in full expression” (ch. 8, p. 162: Carl Degler‟s editorial footnote to the paragraph explains that Gilman refers to “the tribulations of the Armenians under the rule of the Turkish sultan in 1894-95 and after, when thousands of Armenians were massacred for religious and ethnic reasons.” I thank Cynthia J. Davis for calling this paragraph to my attention.) In September, 1904, Gilman wrote a letter to the editor of the newly established Armenia (1.1 [ Oct. 1904]) that she felt it “an honor to serve on the staff of such a monthly as you propose.” She emphasized that “[i]f the pen is mightier than the sword it should use its power to defend the oppressed, uphold the right, and enforce justice— as did the sword in noble hands” (7-8). Her article “International Duties” also appeared in this inaugural issue of Armenia (10-14). In it, she particularizes her 1895 program for the United States of America and John Smith. She begins by noting that “in this new century . . . . the word „Armenian‟ [is customarily] followed by „atrocities,‟ „massacre,‟ „outrage‟ [and is associated with] incredible suffering” (10). She comments that “America has heard and responded to a certain degree.” However, Gilman asserts, ”National 4

crimes demand international law, to restrain, prohibit, punish; best of all, to prevent” (10). She continues, “A growing perception of interpersonal relation has been followed by the legal enforcement of a certain standard of conduct on all citizens for the common good; [the same] is beginning to take place in our growing perception of inter-national relation” (11). Thus, “a system of international law will raise the average, and check the more outrageous crimes” (11). To her credit, Gilman does note that “[o]ur Indian policy, for instance, would profit much if we committed ourselves to a high standard of international agreement on the treatment of subject races” (12; C. Davis email 10/18/11), but at the same time she dismisses indigenous American tribal nations as mere “subject races.” She optimistically proceeds, “If [major nations] made themselves into the loosest kind of Vigilance Committee . . . they could put an end to this grade of evil at once in any other nation” (12). She believes that “the very diplomacy” evident in recent history suggests “the faint creeping thread of world-union” (12). “The era of national isolation has long passed . . . . Commerce,” she asserts, “requires international law” (12) and “World progress requires world peace. World peace requires world union. . . . It is a disgrace to a civilized world to have within it any nation committing such revolting crimes as those of Turkey” (13). “Who is to do it? . . . America [of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt from 19048], with the blended blood of all peoples in her veins, with interests in every land, . . .who leads in so many things, can well afford to lead in this; not only allowing human liberty here, but using her great strength to protect it everywhere” (14). Gilman‟s concern remains timely. The evidence of both Balakians establishes genocidal massacres of Armenians, even though the Turkish position as it is presented in A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (2008) by M. Sukru Hanioglu does not. Additionally, Gilman‟s 1890‟s stance regarding world peace speaks to 2011 concerns: Paul Chappell claims that “to solve our national and global problems in the interconnected world of the 21st century, we must create a peaceful revolution in human thinking, which includes recognizing our shared humanity” (http://warisacrime.org/print/59164, p.17). This note suggests several neglected areas of research concerning Gilman. In general we now need studies that are narrowly focused investigations. We have seen no major studies

that I am aware of examining international affiliations Gilman forged and issues she reported. Neither have there been studies focused solely upon The Impress 1894-5 (Scharnhorst 82-98) or upon Gilman‟s year as Contributing Editor of the “Current Issues” section of The Woman‟s Journal in 1904, (Scharnhorst 108-118). And the relationship between Gilman and Alice Stone Blackwell merits archival investigation, as a careful reading of entries in Gilman‟s Diaries suggests. (A detailed electronic Bibliography is available upon request from [email protected] .)

“A Song in May,” by Charles Walter Stetson

By Denise D. Knight, State University of New York, Cortland As scholars have well documented, during their courtship, Gilman‟s soon-to-be first husband, Charles Walter Stetson, fancied himself not only a painter but also a poet. When a cluster of sonnets that he submitted to the Atlantic in the spring of 1883 was rejected, Stetson sought from his friend, American art critic and author Charles de Kay, an opinion about the quality of the verse that he often seemed to find himself writing. Stetson regarded himself a serious poet and was devastated by de Kay's assessment that his writing held “no promise” and that Stetson should “consider sonnets the amusement of vacant hours, [and] not a serious matter for publication." Stetson‟s verse was “so slight,” de Kay remarked, “so little above the ordinary run of verse, that perhaps no criticism [would be] better” (Endure 187). A sensitive man, Stetson poured onto the pages of his diary his humiliation at having believed that his poetry had aesthetic merit, and he implored Gilman to burn the sonnets in her possession. So wounded was Stetson by de Kay‟s criticism and by the Atlantic’s rejection that he vowed to never again submit poems for publication: “Any dreams of making good sonnets will now die at the first breath,” he confided to his diary. “My poor heart-aches shall not be laughed at by chance seers because of bad grammar and rickety metre. They must be sacrificed” (188). After Stetson‟s death in 1911, second wife Grace Ellery Channing described how heavily de Kay‟s words had weighed on Stetson: “[H]is heart was much in poetry” and the rejection that he experienced was “one of the terrible crises in his life. . . . He at once concluded his verse was 5

useless, destroyed most of it, and planned never to write again” (qtd. in Endure 188). We now know, however, that Stetson did in fact realize his dream to see his work published, albeit in a minor way. One of his poems, “A Song in May,” appeared in the daily newspaper, the Boston Evening Traveller, on May 22, 1886. Written during one of Gilman‟s lowest points—as she suffered through a protracted breakdown— Stetson lamented her waning love for him. Throughout the eighteen-line poem, he wore his heart upon his sleeve. It would not be the only time Stetson went public with a very private matter. Less than a year later, while Gilman was in Philadelphia undergoing treatment for neurasthenia from Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Stetson exhibited at the Providence Art Club a painfully personal portrait depicting Gilman‟s “mental agony” (Living 96), as she nursed their daughter Katharine, her tears “mingling with [her] milk” (“Records”).1 The two separated the following year. Biographer Cynthia J. Davis rightly notes that much of Stetson‟s extant poetry is “overwrought and highly stylized. . . . He habitually relied on the poetic contractions, convoluted syntax, and archaic pronouns” (65). “A Song in May” is a bit less tortured than many of his verses, though it certainly doesn‟t qualify as good poetry. Still, it must have given Stetson, a proud man, some degree of satisfaction, and perhaps validation, to finally see one of his verses in print. A SONG IN MAY.2 [For the Saturday Traveller.] The tulip-beds are bright as flame, The daffodils nod all arow; But ah, where lie the flowers that came And lightly laughed a year ago? Oh where, my Love, are they This morn of matchless May? In one fond heart love liveth on, Tho' days be dark, go fast or slow; But ah, dear Love, where hath it gone, The love we had a year ago? Love liveth still, you say: Oh not the love of yester May! O God, who holdeth all in fee, By whom all things decrease or grow,

Bring back, bring back to her and me The love we had a year ago! Oh let it be, I pray, As blossoms come to May! CHARLES WALT. STETSON. May, 1886. Notes 1. Titled “Evening—Mother & Child,” the 12 x 15” oil painting, begun in 1886 and completed in 1887, is in the private collection of Christopher and Melinda Ratcliffe. 2. “A Song in May” originally appeared with the title “In May 1886” in a “dainty lovely” six-month calendar that Stetson illustrated for his young wife. He presented it to her on January 1, 1887. The calendar version, unlike the verse that appeared in the Boston Evening Traveller, was paired with an addendum, in which Stetson looked forward, in vain, to the return of Gilman‟s love for him before their third wedding anniversary, in May 1887. See The Diaries of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, p. 368 and pp. 896-897. In May 1887 And now the springing flow'rs I see; The lilies and the roses blow; Dear love's come back to her and me, The sweet fond love of years ago! And forasmuch as I did pray I'll thank thee, God, this May! Works Cited Davis, Cynthia J. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2010. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Diaries of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 2 Vols. Ed. Denise D. Knight. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994. -----. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography. New York: Appleton-Century, 1935. -----. “Records of My Daughter Katharine Stetson.” Private Collection, Walter Stetson Chamberlin Family Papers. (Quoted by permission.) Stetson, Charles Walt. “A Song in May.” Boston Evening Traveller. May 22, 1886, n.pag. -----. Endure: The Diaries of Charles Walter Stetson. Ed. Mary A. Hill. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980. 6

Gilman-Related Events Panel Discussion on Gilman at St. John Fisher College In conjunction with the appearance of The Literature of Prescription, a travelling exhibit of the National Library of medicine, at St. John Fisher College, Tim Madigan and several other faculty members organized an interdisciplinary panel on the “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The event—attended by over 90 students, faculty, and staff—was a great success.

Women‟s Music Festival to Honor Gilman On June 3, 2012, the Stafford Arts Commission is sponsoring HERLAND, a women‟s music festival. The festival will feature 10 women musicians from the Northeast region. HERLAND was chosen as the name of the festival to honor the Charlotte Perkins Gilman‟s work by the same name. Gilman created a feminist Utopian novel depicting a society of women characterized by harmony, collaboration, compassion and competence. The female musicians of the Herland festival join together in the same spirit celebrating diversity of style and unity of purpose. Premiering on June 2nd , before the festival, The Arts Commission is presenting Gilman‟s The Yellow Wallpaper performed by local actress Carole Frassinelli.

Davis‟s Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography. This lively discussion prompted the Susan B. Anthony House to invite Stefanie Sydelnik to give a talk on Gilman in June 2013 as part of their Lunch and Lecture Series.

Recent Publications on Gilman Books Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Wild Unrest: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Making of “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” Oxford UP, 2012. Mark Van Wienen, American Socialist Triptych: The Literary Political Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Upton Sinclair, and W.E.B. DuBois. U of Michigan P, 2012. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s In This Our World and Uncollected Poems. Eds. Gary Scharnhorst and Denise D. Knight. Syracuse UP, 2012. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: New Texts, New Contexts, Eds. Jennifer Tuttle and Carol Farley Kessler, The Ohio State UP, 2011. Cynthia Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography. Stanford UP, 2010.

Articles Kristen R. Egan, “Conservation and Cleanliness: Racial and Environmental Purity in Ellen Richards and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Women’s Studies Quarterly. 39.3/4 ( Fall 2011): 77-92.

Susan B. Anthony House Displays Photo of Gilman The Susan B. Anthony House and Museum in Rochester, N.Y. has added a photo of Charlotte Perkins Gilman to the second floor bedroom, visible to visitors touring the National Historic Landmark. The discovery of exchanges and interactions between Gilman and Anthony inspired volunteers at the House to devote their monthly book club meeting to Gilman, reading both primary texts by Gilman and Cynthia J. 7

************************************************************************************ The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Newsletter is published each spring by the Gilman Society and distributed to all dues-paying members. The newsletter welcomes short articles (500-800 words), book reviews, reports on teaching Gilman, descriptions of archival items, calls for papers, and conference and publication announcements. For information concerning future submissions, contact Stefanie Sydelnik at [email protected]. Membership in the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society The aim of the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society is to encourage interest in Gilman and the issues that she explored. Membership includes an annual issue of the Newsletter, notices of Gilman-sponsored sessions at conferences, and an invitation to participate in the annual business meeting, which usually takes place at the American Literature Association Conference. Dues are $10.00/year or $150.00 for lifetime membership. Overseas members should contact Executive Director Peter Betjemann regarding membership fees and payment. To join, please fill out this form and send it with a check (in U.S. dollars) made out to the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society to this address: Peter Betjemann, Dept. of English, Oregon State University, Moreland Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331. Name________________________________________________________________________________ Academic Affiliation (if any) _____________________________________________________________ Address _______________________________________________________________________________ Current members: is this a new address? _______ Phone ______________________________ Email _________________________________________ I enclose

____ $10.00 for one year of membership ____ $150.00 for a lifetime membership

plus an additional contribution of $ ______________________. Total amount enclosed: $ _________________________. Check one: ___ new member ___ renewal

8

The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society Peter Betjemann Dept. of English Oregon State University Moreland Hall Corvallis, OR 97331

In This Issue: “Gilman and Eugene Manlove Rhode” by Gary Scharnhorst, University of New Mexico “Gilman on Armenia: Three Articles from 1894, 1895, and 1904” By Carol Farley Kessler, Penn State Brandywine “„A Song in May,‟ by Charles Walter Stetson” By Denise D. Knight, State University of New York, Cortland Publications and Conference Panel News