Biography of Charlotte Perkins

Introduction

Charlotte Perkins was a famous American social reformer, lecturer, poet, and feminist, writer of short stories, sociologist, and novelist. She left a legacy for the next generations due to the works she engaged in and also for being a utopian feminist because she practiced the concepts of unorthodox and lifestyle. The birth of Perkins was in Hartford, Connecticut on July 3, 1860, in the United States. Her parents were Mary Perkins and Frederick Perkins. Perkins had a brother Thomas Adie who happened to be older than Charlotte with fourteen months since her mother Mary got advised by a physician that if she bore other children, she would have died. Charlotte and her brother were mostly under the care of their father's aunt since her father moved out and abandoned them when Perkins was an infant(Davis 2010:125). Charlotte attended seven schools in four years which made her schooling erratic, and her education ended when she was fifteen years. She got kept from reading fiction and making friendships with her mother who was not affectionate to keep her from getting hurt.

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In her autobiography, she wrote that she was shown affection by her mother only when she was asleep, her childhood was full of isolation and most of the time she was lonely since she did not have any friends. This led her to prepare unknowingly for what was before her; she regularly went to public libraries where she spent most of her time reading about ancient civilizations. Her father who loved literature influenced her, and after some years Charles sent Katherine books that he felt that we're going to be of great help to Charlotte Perkins. Perkins spend most of her youth years in Providence, Rhode Island, at that time she only had male friends and she was unashamed of it. She had a natural intelligence, and her teachers were impressed by her wide knowledge; however, they were disappointed in her since she was from a poor background. (McKenna 2012: 110). She had favorite subjects like natural philosophy which later got changed to physics.

She started her classes in Rhode Island school where she was supposed to learn about designing 1878, she received financial assistance from Charles who was however absent, and as an artist, and she supported herself by use of trade cards. She started teaching and motivated other people from the school to explore their talents; Perkins was good when it came to painting.

Perkinsin 1884 became Charles wife; she had however declined the marriage because she thought it was not a good idea and not the right thing for her. She gave birth to their daughter Katharine the following year; however, Perkins suffered severe depression. At the age of Perkins, Women were seen as out of control and anxious beings therefore sometimes claims were ignored when a woman became ill after giving birth. She moved out of her husband's house in the year 1888something that was not common at that time. They got a divorce in the year 1894; the divorce resulted in Charlotte moving to Pasadena with her daughter in California. In California, she turned out to be very active and joined movements that associated with feminism and reforms(Davis 2010:117).Perkins sent her daughter to stay with her father who had married with a second wife. Reports got received that Perkins was happy for the couple since her daughter had found a good mother perhaps better than her.

Perkins lost her mother in the year 1983, and she made a choice to move to the eastern part after long eight years, she made contact with her cousin Houghton an attorney at Wall Street, and after spending some years with him, they became romantically involved. She got married to him for 22 years and stayed with him in New York City. She described that her marriage was not like her first one, later in the same year, 1922 Perkins moved to her husband's old homestead in Norwich. Her husband later died in 1934 from a cerebral hemorrhage, after that she moved to Pasadena, she had sent her daughter to stay with her father. In January 1932, physicians told her she had cancer of the breast; she later committed suicide by drinking an overdose of chloroform on August 17, 1935. She wrote in her autobiography and suicide note that she choose to die by drinking chloroform rather than cancer; therefore she died in peace.

Perkins moved to Pasadena and became active in the organizational movements based on social reforms. She represented California as their speaker in the year 1896 in London in National American Woman Suffrage Association. She got introduced to Nationalist Clubs movements in the year 1890 which had the aim of promoting progressive, peaceful and ethical human race through ending greed, capitalism, and distinctions between social classes. Her poem "Similar Cases" was published in the Nationalist Magazine, she later received critics for her poem and positive feedback since the poem was a satirical review of individuals who did not want to accept change. Through the same year, she was inspired and was able to write a short story called "The Yellow Wallpaper," fifteen essays, a novella and a number of poems. She gained public attention when she wrote her first volume of poems; this resulted in the launching of her career after she began lecturing on Nationalism. "In This World" was published in 1893, she grew famous together with her social circle of activists and depended on lecturing for income.

The domestic oppression of women through beliefs upheld by the society influenced her research, and this resulted in her becoming a humanist and a feminist. She strongly came up with an argument that theories from Darwin's evolution was a representation of the men only and this made her embrace the theory of reform Darwinism, she overlooked where the female brain originated from in the society, and this made her act rational. Perkins argued that the maternal roles played by women and the act of a male being aggressive were artificial and not important for survival in the historical times. She argued that women depended on their husbands for survival because they relied on their sexual assets to impress their spouses so that their family got supported; she believed that domestic economics and sex had a close relationship. She was disturbed that young girls from their childhood got forced into social constraints that got believed in preparing them for motherhood through clothes that are designed specifically for them as well as toys.

She thought that there was no need for different toys and garments that small girls and boys should wear or play with neither the activities they are involved in, she wanted equal treatment for both boys and girls, and this is what encouraged her feminist movements. Androcentric culture gets halted throughout history and contribution of women in civilization was not recognized. She believed that there was a need to prevent deterioration of the human race because women had not fully developed from the human race and there was a necessity for improvement. Economic independence was what she believed could result in freedom for the women in the society and bring equality. Due to this, she published her book "Women and Economics" in 1898 which argued that men subjugated women and that women should not allow themselves to be precluded by motherhood from doing activities away from their homesteads(Golden 2007: 16-31). It also talked about the professionalization of childcare, housekeeping, and cooking; she also wrote: "The Ideal Woman" was assigned a special role, and it did not only lock her into her home, but was expected to embrace and love it, and be happy about it. She was assigned spokesperson for certain topics such as the view of work to women, family and dress codes. She believed that both men and women should share housework and the early age woman should learn to be independent. She wrote and published more books such as "The Man-Made World" (1911), "Human Work" (1904) and "The Home" (1903).

Sociologists such as William Edward Burghardt and Jane Addams worked around the same time as Charlotte Perkins. He was born on February 23, 1868, and used to be known as a Pan Africanist, editor, civil rights activist, American sociologist, writer, author and civil rights activist. He led the Niagara Movement which comprised of activists from African-American fighting for the welfare of the blacks. The team of activists was against an agreement made by Booker T. Washington that guaranteed Southern whites that black culture was going to receive their fundamental rights such as basic education and fair and equal economic opportunities while southern blacks were expected to submit to the white political rule. He insisted that political representation to be increased and only believed that the intellectuals of the African-American elites could only bring full civil rights. He believed that the blacks had equal opportunities to advanced education to be able to develop their leadership. He mainly targeted racism, and he formed protests that were against lynching and increased discrimination in education and employment. He ensured that he included in his cause the people of color especially Africans and Asians in colonies; he was fighting for the independence of people of color and African colonies from the European government.

Jane Addams was born on September 8, 1860; she was a social worker, a leader in women suffrage, world peace, and activist/feminist, author, public protestor, sociologist and public philosopher. Addams was very prominent in the era when certain presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson announced that they were social activists and reformers. She was a famous reformer of the progressive era, she assisted and focused on certain problems in American such as issues concerned to mothers such as what their children need such as public health and peace. In one of her essays "Utilization of Women in City Government," she addressed the people that there are relationships between the way the government works and the households.She also said that the government departments such as children schooling and sanitation could have an origin from the roles women played in tradition in the private sphere.(Golden 2007: 40-56). Therefore in such matters, women had more knowledge than men, and through this, they deserved to have their best opinions voted for by the public. Addams was also recognized as an American pragmatist and acted as a role model for middle-class women who offered their time to volunteer to uplift their communities. She was also responsible for fighting for the rights of women in the society to ensure there is gender equality.

Charlotte Perkins areas of interest were women economic empowerment and feminism. She thought that there was no need for different toys and garments that small girls and boys should wear or play with neither the activities they were involved in, she wanted equal treatment for both boys and girls, and this is what encouraged her feminist movements. Androcentric culture got halted throughout history and contribution of women in civilization was not recognized. She believed that there was a need to prevent deterioration of the human race because women had not fully developed from the human race and there was a necessity for improvement. Economic independence was what she believed could result in freedom for the women in the society and bring equality. Due to this, she published her book "Women and Economics" in 1898 was research that she did which argued that women got dominated by men and that women should never allow themselves to be precluded by motherhood from doing important activities outside their homesteads. She wrote novels, poems, shorts stories and gave lectures which aimed at fighting for women rights to show that both genders have equal rights when it comes to education...