A Note on Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Katharine Hepburn

Abstract

Though separated in age by nearly half a century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) and the actress Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) were friends and allies. Both were natives of Hartford and they were distantly related by ancestry and marriage.1 Gilman was well-acquainted with Katharine Houghton Hepburn (1878–1951), the mother of the actress and a prominent feminist, and she occasionally visited the Hepburn residence in the Nook Farm neighborhood of the Connecticut capital—the very house, in fact, where her brother Thomas Perkins had once lived.2 Gilman closely followed Hepburn's acting career, praising her performances in the films Terms of Divorcement (“She was better than John Barrymore in it”)3 and Little Women to her friend Grace Ellery Channing (“I'm pleased that you agree with my high opinion of Katharine Hepburn. . . . It is a delight to have someone like that to count on”).4 In November 1933, soon “The Yellow Wall-paper” was reprinted in Golden Book, Gilman considered adapting it for the stage. “Perhaps Kate Hepburn would consider [acting in] it,—though she's pretty young,” she mused in a letter to her cousin Lyman Beecher Stowe.5 At the time, ironically, Hepburn was twenty-six, older than Gilman when she endured the “rest cure” prescribed by S. Weir Mitchell and the same approximate age as Gilman when she wrote the story. A year later, Katharine Stetson Chamberlin, Gilman's daughter, hosted a reception in her Pasadena home for her mother, who had recently moved to California. Chamberlin invited Hepburn, who could not attend but responded in a kind note: Dear Mrs. Chamberlin:Due to the va[g]aries of the delivery service in California, your invitation to tea arrived after the tea. I should, however, have been unable to come as I am working all day, every day, on “Little Mi[n]ister.”6 Thank you so much anyway for asking me.I should love to see Mrs. Gilman again and shall try to get hold of her on the completion of this picture. Please give her my warmest regards.Sincerely yours,Katharine Hepburn7Gilman and Hepburn met personally on at least one other occasion. In January 1934, Katharine Houghton Hepburn accompanied Gilman “to see her wonderful daughter again” in a performance of “The Lake” in New York. “It is a paltry play; paltry,” Gilman reported to Katharine Chamberlin, “and it's like putting a quart measure in a pint cup to see [the young Kate] try to crawl into a namby-pamby girl like that, but she does it.”8 In the course of my own research on Gilman over fifty years later, I came across this letter and sent a copy of it to Kate Hepburn, who immediately replied: XII – 15 – 1987Dear Gary Scharnhorst—How fascinating—and how very good of you to take the trouble to send it to me—Thank you very very much—Katharine Hepburn9