1 âI Am Human,â WJ (16 July 1904): 226.
3 In private correspondence, Judith A. Allen has suggested that this decision to use âCharlotteâ implies not only a condescending familiarity, it also lacks the deference extended to figures like Ward (I do not call him âLester,â in other words). Ward, however, only went by one surname his whole life as opposed to Charlotteâs three; nor do I have any need in these pages to distinguish Ward from his first and second spouses. So while I take Allenâs point, I still feel âCharlotteâ is the least confusing way to refer to her throughout.
4 Howells, qtd. in CPS to GECS, 9 July 1892, GECSP, SL; West, qtd. in CPG to GECS, 26 May 1924, mf-6, SL; Wells, qtd. in Black, âThe Woman,â 39; Catt, New York Times (20 August 1935): 44. Thanks to Shelley Fisher Fishkin for helping me to refine my thoughts about the anomalous status of âThe Yellow Wall-Paper.â
5 CPS to KSC, 2 May 1933, folder 10, SL; CPS to KSC, 29 June 1929, folder 100, SL.
7 âThe Commonplace,â Time and the Hour (26 February 1898): 10â11; ITOW, 4â7.
8 CPG, âIn the Near Future,â FR 3 (January 1912): 18; L, 73.
9 See my âIntroduction,â and DKâs âGilmanâs Breakdownâ; the âtheoristâ is Steele, 122.
10 She calls âlifeâ a verb in HW, 203, and she reiterates this point elsewhere: âOur human-ness,â she argues in The Man-Made World, â . . . is in what we do and how we do it, rather than in what we areâ (FR 1 [November 1909]: 21). She repeats this mantra again in her final published treatise, HR&H, when she maintains that â[w]e should not say âlifeâ as a noun but âlivingâ as an active verbâ (98); she also uses the gerund both in the title of her autobiography and in its pages (see, e.g., L, 181); beginning with âwell used,â the quotations are from âThe New Immortality,â FR 3 (February 1912): 64.
11 âThe Vision and the Program,â FR 6 (May 1915): 119.
12 Calhoun, 10. In claiming that she redefines, rather than jettisons, the self, I differ from Mari Jo Buhle, who holds that Charlotte ârejects the whole business of selfhoodâ (Buhle, Feminism, 48).
14 CPG to KSC, 19 May 1934, folder 105, SL; on personality as a âlimitation,â see âPersonality and God,â FR 2 (August 1911): 204â05; CPS to GHG, 16 September 1898, folder 55, SL.
15 DKD II, 27 July 1893, 545; âsocial hungerâ from Black, âThe Woman,â 34â35; Moving the Mountain, FR 2 (November 1911): 304â05; on the value of the personal realm, see âThoughts & Figgerings,â 26 March 1894, folder 16, SL.
16 On her being a âwreckâ and her desire to âleave off being me,â see CPS to GHG, 12 October 1897, folder 46, SL; âLittle Cell,â ITOW, 25; CPS to GHG, 17 March 1899, folder 67, SL.
17 On her use of these terms interchangeably, see her âThe Influence of Women on Public Life,â Public: A Journal of Democracy 22 (1919): 571â72; âuseful . . . goodfornothingâ assessment from CPS to GHG, 16 March 1899, folder 67, SL.
18 CPS to GHG, 16 September 1898, folder 55, SL; CPS to GHG, 14 March 1899, folder 66, SL.
19 HW, 134. Charlotte borrowed the term omniism from her fellow activist, the radical millionaire J. Graham Phelps Stokes; she cites Stokesâs March 1903 Wiltshire Magazine article in HW. For more on Stokesâs influence, see Polly Wynn Allen, 123. See also âI Am Human,â WJ 16 (July 1904): 226, and âWorld Rousers,â FR 6 (May 1915): 132, where she writes, âWe! That is the main ideaâWe!â
20 Humanness, FR 4 (December 1913): 334.
21 For general histories of this period, see works by Ballard C. Campbell, Ekirch, George, Ginger, Herreshoff, and Hofstadter. Hofstadterâs Age discusses Spencerâs dualism. See also Wiebe, 198ff, for a discussion of Washington Gladden.
22 See Menand, xâxii. Thanks to Thomas J. Brown for encouraging me to clarify Charlotteâs significance vis-Ă -vis the Beechers and the pragmatists; he also helped me refine my argument about the mixed results of Charlotteâs desired synthesis and the âtension between aspiration and reality.â
23 âOur Most Valuable Livestock,â Pacific Rural Press (17 October 1891), oversize folder 1, SL.
24 CPS to GHG, 20 March 1899, enclosure, folder 67, SL; âEternal Meâ was published in Cosmopolitan (27 September 1899): 477.
25 I would like to thank the second, anonymous reader for Stanford University Press for helping me to formulate this point as well as the earlier one about the duration of Charlotteâs fame.
26 âHyenas,â folder 147, SL. See also âA âPsalm of Lives,ââ Saturday Review of Literature 26 (November 1927): 358; âthick descriptionâ is Geertzâs term.
27 T. S. Eliot, âChoruses from the Rockâ (1934), The Complete, 96. Eliot asks, âWhere is the Life we have lost in living?â