Article Review Gill, Valerie. Catharine Beecher and...

Bailey Diamond In the article â€Å"Catharine Beecher and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Architects of Female Power† by author Valerie Gill, Ms. Gill attempts to bridge the gap between what appears to be two powerful women of their time with two totally different opinions of the American woman and the type of life they should lead. The author points out the obvious differences of opinions in the writings of the two women, who are related by the way, and the different era in which they write. Catharine Beecher was the great aunt of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and lived and wrote during a time when a woman working in any other place besides the home was not something that happened often. A woman’s job during this time was to raise children and make†¦show more content†¦Both women also had the common conclusion that the woman’s place, whether it is in the home working or in the factory working, would make a great impact on the society. Architectural ideas as to better society are another thing these two authors had in common, as pointed out by Gill in the article. The elder author Beecher would make drawings in her articles about staging the home and using dividers as a way to make more areas in the home, and Gilman, being concerned about the lives led by farmer’s wives, included drawings of a farming community shaped like a pie that had common areas to share, as to make life easier for them. Interesting enough, Gill included in her article a picture of a drawing done by Beecher, along with her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, later in life of a block of houses with common areas used to house the â€Å"homeless, helpless, and vicious† which very much resembled Gilman’s block community idea where people shared common spaces and so that some women could take care of the children and household duties while others went out in the community to work. This is an excellent example of Beecher thinking l ike Gilman in the mixing of public and private space. It is my opinion that the aging Beecher was beginning to think out of the box. This article was insightful and gave a great example of how people with a difference of opinion can actually be thinking the same. If one just read the two women’s writings without an open mind, one would think