VLVL2 From Rape to Spousal Abuse to Postpartum Depression...

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

...on the Feminist Trail thru Vineland.

Although we're not yet there, postpartum depression is on the radar 
screen, so- some of you might be interested in checking out this early 
American feminist tract, and the short story it documents:

From: Why I Wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper"? by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous 
    nervous breakdown tending to melancholia--and beyond. 
    During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout 
    faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in 
    nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise 
    man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a 
    still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded 
    there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home 
    with solemn advice to "live as domestic a life as far as possible," 
    to "have but two hours' intellectual life a day," and "never to 
    touch pen, brush, or pencil again" as long as I lived. This was in 1887.

Get to the entire text here:

    http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/wallpaper/wallpaper.html

Many of the links on this page are down, but you can still get to the text
of "The Yellow Wallpaper." The "Women Make Movies" link is broken,
as well, but here's a new link:
    
    http://www.wmm.com/about/about.htm

respectfully