Building Domestic Liberty: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Architectural Feminism [Paperback]

Building Domestic Libertyoffers a critical and admiring analysis of feminist philosopher Charlotte Perkins Gilman (18601935). Polly Allen examines Gilman's approach to architecture, landscape, and neighborhood design and discusses Gilman's case against prevailing household design and looks at her philosophy of world improvement.

Defining herself as a pragmatic visionary,POLLY ALLENis a leading advocate for multicultural affordability in the contemporary co-housing movement. She is founder and executive director of Neighborhood Housing Partnership, Inc., based near Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Thanks to Allen's careful reading of the life and work of Gilman, those of us concerned with the state of contemporary American housing can become acquainted withor reintroduced toa kindred spirit.Winterthur Portfolio

To Gilman and to other architectural feminists, securing woman's place was a social and design issue, a public cause demanding communal and environmental support. It was, in the words of Polly Wynn Allen's lucidBuilding Domestic Liberty. . . a crusade against the authoritarian speech of the single-family home.New York Times

Provides a clear and structured exposition of Gilman's ideas. . . . It is written with considerable irony and from a stance that is at the same time admiring and critical. Allen bluntly exposes Gilman's racism and class bias, her denial of essential human differences, and the overstatement and pretension that characterize her attempts at social ethics. At the same time, Allen contributes an analysis of Gilman's approach to architecture, landscape, and neighborhood design that adds to the case for her importance.American Historical Review

Allen has situated her subject in the nineteenth-century social landscape and sifted through fiction, poetry, essays, articles, and diaries to describe Gilman's vision for the futlãÄ