1. Gilman CP. The Yellow Wall Paper. Small, Maynard & company; 1899. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/mgcbt1/alma9921604597105201

Background: This short story follows a woman who is confined to her room by her husband given her increasingly diminished mental state. The reading displays the way women’s mental health was treated during that time period and shows themes of oppression.

How I Used It: This story was helpful to my research as it explores women mental health and the way gender roles had expected women to be in marriage and society. The narrator’s confinement to her room, reflect the social expectations that women should be submissive and highlights how women writers critique the restrictive roles imposed on women through literature. It reflects the growing feminist movement at the turn of the century as women began to advocate for their own autonomy, intellectual, and emotional needs. 

2. Bloom H. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Bloom’s Literary Criticism, an Infobase Learning Co.; 2011. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/mgcbt1/alma9921442163405201

Background: This novel explores the life of Edna Pontellier in late 19^th century Louisiana. Edna begins to question her role as a wife and mother and discovers new desires for independence and self-expression. The novel portrays themes of self-discovery and the constrains on women in society, specifically in marriage and motherhood.  

How I Used It: I used this novel in my essay to highlight how women writers began to challenge social norms, often regrading marriage, motherhood, and female autonomy. Edna Pontellier’s struggle shows the change in literary focus that was growing on women’s lives and desires. Many themes discussed were previous suppressed in literature and the novel critiqued the oppression and limitations placed on women.

3. Wharton E. The Age of Innocence. New Edition. William Collins; 2010. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/mgcbt1/alma992153842370520

Background: Wharton’s novel revolves around the elite society of New York City. Newland Archer, the main protagonist, who is a lawyer living in the city, struggling through his potential marriage of the perfect and privilege May Welland. Although she is conventionally a great match, he finds himself falling for her cousin, Ellen Olenska, who is a divorcee and would be scandalous to be with. He must grapple with conforming to societal expectations rather than pursuing his true desires. The story explores the inner lives of these characters and show the rigid conventionalization of society. 

How I used it: I used this novel to highlight the harm of societal expectations during the late 19^th and early 20^thcentury. The women in the novel deal with the restrictive social norms, especially in upper class society that they lived in. The expectation of women throughout society was often the biggest setback women had to face, and a novel like The Age of Innocence exemplifies the hypocritical and restrictive behavior of both men and women during this time. 

4. Friedan B. [The Feminine Mystique, Typescript Draft] : Notes; Printed Book 0.; 2018. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/mgcbt1/alma9921325894805201

Background: Betty Friedan created The Feminine Mystique after taking a survey in college of her classmates and found that most we unhappy being housewives. This novel inspired many women to feel more comfortable voicing ideas of political and social activism. It challenged the expectation that women should stay at home and focus solely on their family. It is considered to spark the second feminist wave in the U.S. as it critiques the belief that the highest fulfillment women can have is marriage and motherhood.

How I Used It: I used this novel in my essay to highlight Friedan’s explanation on the “feminine mystique” and how it can be seen as a lens to analyze women’s experiences and the way they were portrayed in literature. It showed a way that literature reflected the understanding of women’s identities that was continuing to grow. She gave a voice to women who felt continuously frustrated who were repressed by societal expectations similar to the way other famous feminine writers had done.

5. Woolf V. A Room of One’s Own. Ktoczyta.pl; 2020. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/jg5vjd/alma9921533908205201

Background: This essay is based on lectures that Woolf delivered at colleges. She argued that in order for women to be accomplished in literature they must be financially independent and have the space for writing. “A room of one’s own” essentially meant to be able to think and write freely without being hindered creatively. 

How I Used It: I used Woolf’s essay to provide a critical perspective on the lack of opportunity for women as writers. A major issue for women in literature was the lack of opportunity to express themselves and be taken seriously as writers. This gives the readers a perspective on the lack of independence women had creatively. This proved that an author like Woolf not only opened up opportunities for women in literature but other financial opportunities for women in the work force. Her idea of space where women can write freely can represent the emotional and intellectual liberation of women during this time period. 

6.  Class CM. Chloroformed: Anesthetic Utopianism and Eugenic Feminism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland and Other Works. Legacy (Amherst, Mass). 2024;41(1):75-98. doi:10.1353/leg.2024.a934770 

https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/ttegd8/cdi_proquest_journals_3090687667

Background: Herland is a story of a feminist utopia discovered by three Americans explorers after WWI. The society is portrayed as peaceful as it is fully run by women who reproduce asexually. Themes of reproductive rights and the equality were continuously explored throughout the novel. Gilman’s work such as Herlandwritten in 1915 advocated for women’s rights and led to women gaining the right to vote. 

How I Used It: I incorporated Herland into my essay by highlighting female authors who use fiction in order to advocate for women’s rights. The novel represented how there was a change beginning in how women were represented in literature. Women writers were attempting alternative ways to influence society and challenge patriarchal norms. The readers develop a perspective of a society ruled by patriarchal systems and the flaws that come with it. Gilman’s influence in women’s writes and women in literature is critical during the late 19^thand early 20^th centuries. 

7. Stein G. Three Lives. The Floating Press; 2011. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/jg5vjd/alma9921443676005201

Background: Gertrude Stein’s Three Lives is a collection of three stories that explore women’s lives in the working class. The three stories are The Good Anna, Melanctha, and The Gentle Lena. Stein was a privilege college student who was constantly surrounded by women who felt trapped by poverty and class. It is considered one of the earliest examples of modernism in literature.

How I Used It: I used Three Lives in my essay to represent the push for modernism in literature and how that effected the women’s suffrage movement. Modernism in literature allowed writers to explore more in depth and complex characters through their everyday lives. This essentially helped the progress of women in literature as the everyday lives of women’s and their inner thoughts and desires were now being discussed without a male lens. 

8. Katz, M.B., Stern, M.J., & Fader, J.J. (2005). Women and the Paradox of Economic Inequality in the Twentieth-Century. Journal of Social History 39(1), 65-88. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/10/article/187573

Background: The “Journal of Social History” is an academic journal the focuses on social history from different time periods, covering a variety of areas. Founded in 1967, its cover of history is credited to be a top-ranked journal and has played an important part in integrating work in aspects of social history. This specific article in the journal written by Michael B. Katz, Mark J. Stern, and Jamie J Fader discusses the economic inequality’s women had to face in the 2oth century.

How I Used It: I used this specific article in my argument to support the claim that women were not allowed to have access to financial matters as men believed women were not intellectually and interested enough to handle such matters. This highlights that women did not have access to the thing’s men had access too which made their fight for equality and the ability to write even harder. It reflects how women were often disempowered in real life and how they were depicted as solely financial dependent on men. It proves to the reader that women had to face gendered stereotypes that kept them from having any control in the economy. 

9. Livermore MA (Mary A, Howe JW, Stone L, Higginson TW, eds. Woman’s Journal (Boston, Mass. : 1870).; 1870. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/mgcbt1/alma9921550794805201

Background: The Woman’s Journal was first published in 1870 and quickly became the leading suffrage journal to advertise for women’s rights issues. It was originally founded by Lucy Stone and her husband, Henry Blackwell, to address middle-class female society and their interest in women’s rights. 

How I Used It: I referenced the journal in my essay to show that there weren’t only just novels produced to incorporate women’s voices in society but newspapers and magazines as well. A popular journal like that, created way before the women’s suffrage movement really began, shows the start of the long fight women had to face. It is a document for the push of women’s rights and was important to women writers who responded to this particular work. 

10. Gilbert S, Gubar S. From the Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Short Story Criticism. 2003;62:122-229.

https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/ttegd8/cdi_gale_lco_AZFFX_SCWSTQ526662063

Background: The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination was a feminist literary work written by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. They examined women writers in the 19^th century, arguing that women writers were confined to make female characters either the “angel” or “monster” which comes from the styles of male writing. 

How I Used It: I used this novel to show that women were often depicted in ways that limited their creativity and self-expression. Even female authors at these times who wrote not for women’s rights but for their own joy of writing novels, often depicted their characters in confined ways. This shows the impact of male writing as it influenced women authors to write in the same rest4rictive ways. 

11. Scott, B. (1990). The Gender of Modernism: A Critical Anthology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/113360.

Background: This book written by Bonnie Scott demonstrate modernists definitions and how issues of gender and modernism collide. The article explains how modernism was male dominated and women’s use of modernism was often overlooked. By highlighting the lens of modernism through gender we can see how women were marginalized in the modernist movement and recognize some of their work today.

How I Used It: I used this novel to support the claim that during the modernist movement in literature, women contributions were often overlooked. It shows how men writers were more likely to gain recognition for their literary works. Making it easier for them to be successful writers, and harder for women to gain popularity in their writing when they are constantly overshadowed by men.