Laupus Library hosts national traveling exhibit on women’s rights advocate, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman and ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’
GREENVILLE, N.C. — East Carolina University’s Laupus Library is hosting a national traveling exhibit through March 6 that explores a provocative story from the beginning of the women’s rights movement.
“The Literature of Prescription: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ ” opened Jan. 24 on the library’s fourth floor in the Evelyn Fike Laupus Gallery.
The six-banner exhibit provides a glimpse into the late nineteenth century, when women were challenging traditional ideas about gender that excluded them from political and intellectual life. At the time, 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.
Gilman wrote numerous treatises critiquing the limited role of women in society, including her most famous book, “Women and Economics,” in which she advocated financial independence and meaningful work for women.
The exhibit was developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine. For more information, visit http://www.ecu.edu/cs-dhs/laupuslibrary/events/LitPresc.cfm or http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/literatureofprescription/b1Literature.html.
Visitors can view the exhibit during normal operating hours posted at http://www.ecu.edu/cs-dhs/laupuslibrary/hours.cfm or call 252-744-2219. Metered parking is available in front of the library. For more information, call Kelly Rogers at 252-744-2232 or e-mail rogerske@ecu.edu
Individuals with disabilities requesting accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act should contact the Department for Disability Support Services at (252) 328-6799 (V) or (252) 328-0899 (TTY).