Exhibit at the Library Commons

The Literature of Prescription: 
Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Yellow Wall-Paper"

In the late nineteenth century, at a time when women were
challenging traditional ideas about gender that excluded them
from political and intellectual life, medical and scientific experts
drew on notions of female weakness to justify inequality between
the sexes. Artist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who was
discouraged from pursuing a career to preserve her health,
rejected these ideas in a terrifying short story titled “The Yellow
Wall-Paper.” The famous tale served as an indictment of the
medical profession and the social conventions restricting
women’s professional and creative opportunities.

Exhibit on Display Now
Library Commons, Upstairs

October 31st - December 11th

For more information, visit the NLM's site:  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/theliteratureofprescription/index.html
Wikipedia page for "The Yellow Wallpaper" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wallpaper

This exhibition is brought to you by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health