Sixteen Trade Cards.
[Gilman, Charlotte Perkins]. Set of Sixteen Trade Cards Designed by Charlotte Perkins [Gilman]. Providence/Boston/New York, c. 1876-1880. Four for Curtis Davis & Co., Boston, Mass.(“Welcome Soap”) and twelve for Kendall Mgf. Co., Providence R.I. (“Soapine French Laundry Soap”).
Sizes vary slightly but roughly 4-1/4” (w) x 2-7/8” (h) card stock; gold-gilt backgrounds highlight color image; plain borders; Curtis cards unprinted at reverse; the Kendall cards have advertising text in black at reverse; cards show evidencesof mounting at reverse with some mild staining; some mild surface wear to front of cards but very good overall, in attractive condition; images bright and distinctive. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1860 to Frederick and Mary Perkins. Her father left his family shortly after the birth of Charlotte. Though NAW describes Frederick Perkins as “a man of some prominence and achivement” he gave his wife and children little support. The family often faced dire poverty during Charlotte’s childhood.
She received scant schooling as a result, but did attend the newly opened Rhode Island School of Design while living in Providence. While in her teens, Charlotte started to earn money as a commercial artist and art teacher. These trade cards, though unsigned, are documented as hers by the Gilman Archive at the Schlesinger Library. The cards for Curtis Davis & Co. strike one as more conventional in concept and awkward in execution (e.g., a young sailor greets his mother while another sailor staggers in under the weight of a large box of Welcome Soap). Those for Kendall are more imaginative, playful, and sure of hand. A female archer hits her target; a young boy lassos a star and begins a climb to into the starry sky; a magician touches the fingertips of a young woman while he gestures to “Soapine” spelled out in the sky above them. The trade cards represent Gilman’s earliest attempts to acquire a profession and a means of financial support, two goals, which became cornerstones of her feminist thought. These early Charlotte Perkins Gilman pieces predate her first published writing by a number of years—Scharnhorst dates her first published verse 1884 and her first fiction 1886. While little is known about this aspect of Gilman’s long career before the public, the cards reflect her first forays into less conventional modes of thinking.
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