by Jill Bergman
Betjemann / 181
cor in the Craftsman and would have loved this subtlety in the plot; it stresses the ethical centrality of a structure, and its associated furnishings, in his own peculiarly ethical decorative style. But the potential of physical things must be made good, must be held to account, by the vigorous listening and correct documenting modeled, in this case, by Aunt Selina. A common account
of Gilman’s work—promoted in part by Gilman herself—identifies her fic-
tion as primarily a pass- through, a conduit for her vision of a materially better world. In much of her fiction, I see the case the other way around: the
material world instead appears as a conduit for her fundamentally narrative
imagination. What matters, in this way of looking at Gilman’s career, is the
stuff of the author’s calling: the active reading, writing, and transcribing that the built environment makes possible.
NOTES
1. Cynthia J. Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), 295.
2. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Benigna Machiavelli, ed. Sasha Newborn (1914; repr., Santa Barbara, CA: Bandanna Books, 2013), 177.
3. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Crux, ed. Dana Seitler (1911; repr., Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 80, 170.
4. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland, in Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, ed. Denise Knight (New York: Penguin, 1999), 143.
5. Ibid.
6. Gilman, Crux, 170–71.
7. Gilman, Benigna, 178.
8. Gilman, “The Unexpected,” In Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, ed. Denise Knight (New York: Penguin, 1999), 147.
9. Critics who emphasize the elusive qualities of Herland generally link its open- ended qualities with its feminist politics, either identifying such openness as an alternative to patriarchal authority or arguing that such openness pushes readers into an evaluative, criti cally reflective stance. See, e.g., Jean- Jacques Weber,
“Educating the Reader: Narrative Technique and Evaluation in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland,” in The Language and Literature Reader, ed. Ronald Carter and Peter Stockwell (Lon don: Routledge, 2008), 177–86; Laura Donaldson, “The Eve of De- struction: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Feminist Re- creation of Paradise,” Women’s Studies 16 (1989): 373–87; and Christopher Wilson, “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Steady Burghers: The Terrain of Herland,” Women’s Studies 12 (1986): 271–92. Critics who emphasize the authoritative qualities of the text tend to describe the ways in which the novel ironical y reinforces conservative thinking about gender roles and about racial diversity. See, e.g., Kathleen Margaret Lant, “The
182 / Chapter 8
Rape of the Text: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Violation of Herland,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 9, no. 2 (1990): 291–308; and Thomas Galt Peyser, “Reproducing Utopia: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Herland,” Studies in Ameri can Fiction 20, no. 1 (1992): 1–16. A number of critics place the interplay of the novel’s elusive and authoritative modes at the center of their analy sis. See, e.g., Susan Gubar, “She and Herland: Feminism as Fantasy,” in Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy, ed. George Slusser, Eric Rabkin, and Robert Scholes (Carbondale: South ern Illinois University Press, 1983), 139–49; Chris Ferns, “Rewriting Male Myths: Herland and the Utopian Tradition,” in A Very Different Story: Studies in the Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ed. Val Gough and Jill Rudd (Liverpool, UK: University Press, 1999), 24–37; and Val Gough, “Lesbians and
Virgins: The New Motherhood in Herland,” in Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and Its Precursors, ed. David Seed (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 195–215.
10. Barbara Hochman, “The Reading Habit and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ ”
Ameri can Literature 74, no. 1 (2002): 89, 92.
11. “The Living Room: Its Many Uses and Its Possibilities for Comfort and
Beauty,” Craftsman, Oc to ber 1905. The article cited here appeared anonymously, a frequent occurrence in the Craftsman. In this chapter I identify the ideas contained in the anonymous articles with Stickley himself because the magazine served so clearly as a forum for his ideas and because, in most cases, we can reasonably presume that Stickley was in fact the author. However, I do not name Stickley in the citations unless the piece actually appeared under his name.
12. “Structure and Ornament in the Craftsman Workshops,” Craftsman, Janu-ary 1904. I have written at length elsewhere about the literary context of these ideas (but without addressing Gilman); see Peter Betjemann, Talking Shop: The Language of Craft in an Age of Consumption (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011), 142–93.
13. “Structure and Ornament”; Gustav Stickley, “Thoughts Occasioned by an
Anniversary: A Plea for a Democratic Art,” Craftsman, Oc to ber 1904.
14. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Domestic Art,” Craftsman, February 1904.
15. Gilman, Herland, 29.
16. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall- Paper,” in Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, ed. Denise Knight (New York: Penguin, 1999), 168, 172; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Through This,” in Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, ed. Denise Knight (New York: Penguin, 1999), 195, 196.
17. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Rocking- Chair,” in Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, ed Denise Knight (New York: Penguin, 1999), 183, 189.
18. Ibid., 190.
Betjemann / 183
19. Ibid., 190, 191.
20. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Fulfilment,” Forerunner, March 1914, 57.
21. Ibid., 57, 58.
22. Ibid., 57, 61.
23. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds,” in Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, ed. Denise Knight (New York: Penguin, 1999), 207, 208, 209, 218, 219.
24. Gilman, Benigna, 82, 100, 102.
25. Ibid., 82, 102.
26. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Chair of English,” in Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, ed. Denise Knight (New York: Penguin, 1999), 256.
27. Ibid., 255; “Japanese Architecture and Its Relation to the Coming Ameri-
can Style,” Craftsman, May 1906; “Japanese Screens for the Ameri can Home,”
Craftsman, Oc to ber 1911.
28. Gilman, “Chair of English,” 257, 261.
29. Ibid., 261.
30. Kathryn W. Kemp, “ ‘The Dictograph Hears All”: An Example of Surveil-
lance Technology in the Progressive Era,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 6, no. 4 (2007): 416–17.
31. French Strother, “What the Dictograph Is,” World’s Work, 1912; Edward Lyell Fox, “Eavesdropping by Science,” Popu lar Electricity, June 1912.
32. Gilman, Herland, 81.
33. Gilman, Crux, 74.
34. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Unpunished, ed. Catherine J. Golden and Denise Knight (New York: Feminist Press, 1997), 6, 24.
35. Ibid., 65–66.
36. For the utopian basis of Gilman’s architectural imagination, see Polly Wynn Allen, Building Domestic Liberty: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Architectural Feminism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 83–102.
37. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “His Record,” Forerunner, No vem ber 1914, 281, 283–84.
38. Ibid., 285.
WORKS CITED
Allen, Polly Wynn. Building Domestic Liberty: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Architectural Feminism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988.
Betjemann, Peter. Talking Shop: The Language of Craft in an Age of Consumption.
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011.
Davis, Cynthia J. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010.
184 / Chapter 8
Donaldson, Laura. “The Eve of De- struction: Charlot
te Perkins Gilman and the Feminist Re- creation of Paradise.” Women’s Studies 16 (1989): 373–87.
Ferns, Chris. “Rewriting Male Myths: Herland and the Utopian Tradition.” In A Very Different Story: Studies in the Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, edited by Val Gough and Jill Rudd, 24–37. Liverpool, UK: University Press, 1999.
Fox, Edward Lyell. “Eavesdropping by Science.” Popu lar Electricity, June 1912.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Benigna Machiavelli. 1914. Edited by Sasha Newborn.
Santa Barbara, CA: Bandanna Books, 2013.
———. “The Chair of English.” In Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, edited by Denise Knight, 255–62. New York: Penguin, 1999.
———. The Crux. 1911. Edited by Dana Seitler. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
———. “Domestic Art.” Craftsman, February 1904.
———. “Fulfilment.” Forerunner, March 1914.
———. Herland. In Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, edited by Denise Knight, 3–143. New York: Penguin, 1999.
———. “His Record.” Forerunner, No vem ber 1914.
———. “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds.” In Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, edited by Denise Knight, 207–20. New York: Penguin, 1999.
———. “The Rocking- Chair.” In Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, edited by Denise Knight, 183–93. New York: Penguin, 1999.
———. “Through This.” In Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, edited by Denise Knight, 194–97. New York: Penguin, 1999.
———. “The Unexpected.” In Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, edited by Denise Knight, 147–53. New York: Penguin, 1999.
———. Unpunished. Edited by Catherine J. Golden and Denise Knight. New York: Feminist Press, 1997.
———. “The Yellow Wall- Paper.” In Herland, The Yellow Wall- Paper, and Selected Writings, edited by Denise Knight, 166–82. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Gough, Val. “Lesbians and Virgins: The New Motherhood in Herland.” In Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and Its Precursors, edited by David Seed, 195–215. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
Gubar, Susan. “She and Herland: Feminism as Fantasy.” In Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by George Slusser, Eric Rabkin, and Robert Scholes, 139–49. Carbondale: South ern Illinois University Press, 1983.
Hochman, Barbara. “The Reading Habit and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ ” Ameri can Literature 74, no. 1 (2002): 89–110.
“Japanese Architecture and Its Relation to the Coming Ameri can Style.” Craftsman, May 1906.
“Japanese Screens for the Ameri can Home.” Craftsman, Oc to ber 1911.
Kemp, Kathryn W. “ ‘The Dictograph Hears All’: An Example of Surveillance
Betjemann / 185
Technology in the Progressive Era.” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 6, no. 4 (2007): 409–30.
Lant, Kathleen Margaret. “The Rape of the Text: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Violation of Herland.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 9, no. 2 (1990): 291–308.
“The Living Room: Its Many Uses and Its Possibilities for Comfort and Beauty.”
Craftsman, Oc to ber 1905.
Peyser, Thomas Galt. “Reproducing Utopia: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Herland.” Studies in Ameri can Fiction 20, no. 1 (1992): 1–16.
Stickley, Gustav. “Thoughts Occasioned by an Anniversary: A Plea for a Demo-
cratic Art.” Craftsman, Oc to ber 1904.
Strother, French. “What the Dictograph Is.” World’s Work, May 1912.
“Structure and Ornament in the Craftsman Workshops.” Craftsman, Janu ary 1904.
Weber, Jean- Jacques. “Educating the Reader: Narrative Technique and Evalua-
tion in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland.” In The Language and Literature Reader, edited by Ronald Carter and Peter Stockwell, 177–86. Lon don: Routledge, 2008.
Wilson, Christopher. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Steady Burghers: The Terrain of Herland.” Women’s Studies 12 (1986): 271–92.
9
Recovering the Work of
Charlotte Perkins Gilman;
or, Reading Gilman in Rome
Jennifer S. Tuttle
Io sono una donna che non è a sua disposizione. (I am not a woman at your disposal.)
Rosy Bindi
In 2010 I delivered the keynote address at a conference observing Charlotte
Perkins Gilman’s 150th birthday.1 The audience, intent and passionate and in-
clud ing many participants from beyond academia, filled every seat and spilled out into the aisles. People came seeking an outlet for their anger at women’s myriad forms of oppression and voiced their demands for social change. Organized by Cristina Giorcelli, Laura Moschini, and Anna Scacchi, the event
was held not in Gilman’s home country of the United States but at the Uni-
versity of Rome III in Rome, Italy, with the theme “Donna e Polis: Charlotte
Perkins Gilman Oggi” (“Women and Polis: Charlotte Perkins Gilman Today”).
Having attended many previous Gilman conferences, I had come to expect
that such an event would be vibrant and compelling, but never have I expe-
rienced such an electric, vital, and engaged audience as I did in Italy near the end of the Silvio Berlusconi era. As the conference organizers themselves explained, “It is particularly timely and appropriate to reconsider Gilman’s analy-sis of the social dynamics of power, gender, and sexuality today in Italy, given the . . . stereotyped representation of women in Italian culture and their virtual nonexistence in po liti cal and economic institutions.” The organizers documented an upsurge of outrage and activism among feminists from all walks
of life and across the professional and academic spectrum, all of which was
evident at the Rome conference. In explaining their rationale for holding the event, Giorcelli, Moschini, and Scacchi asserted the value of Gilman’s work
“for Italian young women today” notwithstanding the “ ‘flaws’ of her white
middle- class perspective”; they also noted explicitly that the conference was
Tuttle / 187
Figure 9.1. Anna Scacchi’s Italian translation of
Gilman’s works, La terra delle donne ( The Land of
Women); used by permission of Donzelli Press
meant to provide a platform to launch “Anna Scacchi’s new translation of Herland, ‘The Yellow Wall- Paper’ and a selection of short stories” (see fig ure 9.1).
Although this event exemplified the confluence of sexual and literary poli-
tics that has been a hallmark of feminist criticism since the field took shape in the 1960s “as part of the international women’s movement,” according to
Elaine Showalter, the organizers’ overt link to the publication of Scacchi’s Italian edition of Gilman’s writing signals that recovery—retrieving writers and their work from obscurity, republishing out- of- print texts, and issuing editions of unpublished or so- called private writing—is the bedrock of po liti cally engaged literary praxis. In the United States, notes Catherine Golden, the ad-
vent of Gilman studies occurred as part of an early sec ond- wave “frenzy to
publish ‘lost’ and ‘neglected’ works by U.S. women writers”: “scholars felt an urgency to bring more of Gilman’s work back into print.” Like literary criticism in general, the scholarship of recovery is clearly shaped by the demands
188 / Chapter 9
of its context. Golden writes, “The pressing issues of any given his tori cal moment have influenced how an evolving community of feminist critics” in-
terprets Gilman’s writing; acts of recovery are similarly shaped by the social, sexual, cultural, po liti cal, and his tori cal forces in which the scholarly community does its work.2 Indeed, the “urgency” of
recovery to which Golden
refers was everywhere evident in Rome in 2010, fueling Scacchi’s recent vol-
ume and the Italian translations that preceded it—for what is the translation of primary sources if not recovery for a new context and a new readership?
In this chapter I argue that recovery in Gilman studies is inextricable from
the politics of its time: it offers us a window into the concerns of successive generations of feminist scholars and publishers, but it also represents a vital form of feminist activism. Theorizing recovery work in this way requires more than self- reflection on the part of Gilman scholars; it also demands a global perspective in order to account for translation projects like Scacchi’s, which enact the activism of recovery in non- Anglophone milieux. This analy sis therefore hinges on the theme of place, broadly defined as both cultural context and geographical orientation. I begin by considering Gilman’s published texts, specifically the three most prominent works recovered during the sec ond wave of the US women’s movement: Women and Economics, “The Yellow Wall- Paper,”
and Herland. No less significant is the recovery of her unpublished writing; I focus particularly on her correspondence, taking as a case in point the recently discovered letter she sent to her physician, S. Weir Mitchell. But while both of these categories are necessary for a thorough study of recovery work, they are not sufficient: Gilman’s growing popu larity in Italy (and elsewhere abroad) demands a more capacious definition of recovery and a transnational,
hemispheric, even global framework for theorizing such scholarship. In this
essay, therefore, I consider the printing and reprinting of Gilman’s writing as well as the translation of her work for global audiences.
When Gilman died in 1935, most of her writing was out of print. In a 1934
letter to Zona Gale, she expressed the hope that her “scrappy, imperfect, desperately earnest work” might be republished.3 She wanted her work recov-
ered; more than that, she believed it could still change the world for the better, for she well knew that many of the problems she addressed had not yet