A century ago, a doctor might diagnose a stress-laden woman with neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion, and prescribe her months of isolation and rest. That diagnosis was the case for artist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Her experience, referenced in her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is the topic of a National Library of Medicine (NLM) traveling exhibit on display at the WVU Health Sciences Library through March 23. Consisting of six free-standing banners, “Literature of Prescription” is on display in the Library’s lobby.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In the late 1800s, when Gilman consulted Dr. S. Weir Mitchell for help dealing with a bout of melancholy, he advised her: “Live as domestic a life as possible… And never touch pen, brush, or pencil as long as you live.”

The NLM’s website for the exhibit explains that Mitchell was among many medical and scientific experts who believed that mental health issues were “rife among women who attempted to exceed their natural limits.”

Gilman followed Mitchell’s instruction and found herself brought to near madness. She credited her “remnants of intelligence” and a wise friend for her recovery.

“I cast the noted specialist’s advice to the winds and went to work again – work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite; ultimately recovering some measure of power,” Gilman later wrote.

After her recovery, she penned the short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” about a young woman driven mad by the rest cure.

Critics called the short story sensational and said that it would hamper attempts to help those suffering from neurasthenia. However, according to the NLM, Gilman’s words “served as an indictment of the medical profession and the social conventions restricting women’s professional and creative opportunities.”

In a piece published in The Forerunner in 1913, Gilman explained that her goal was “to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.”

“It has to my knowledge saved one woman from a similar fate – so terrifying her family that they let her out into normal activity and she recovered. Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’,” Gilman wrote.

For more information about the exhibit, contact Lori Hostuttler: lori.hostuttler@mail.wvu.edu or 304-293-1922.

The WVU Libraries’ Information Literacy Course Enhancement Program is focused on integrating information literacy into the classroom to enrich student learning. The program began as a response to the 2010 Plan and now addresses “engaging undergraduates in a challenging academic environment,” the first goal of WVU’s 2020 Strategic Plan.

Each of the selected participants will receive a summer stipend, or other relevant professional remuneration if 12-month faculty apply, and will work with the WVU Libraries’ Director of Instruction and Information Literacy and a teaching librarian to create discipline-specific active learning assignments that address information literacy concepts and pre-existing learning expectations of the established course. The existing course syllabus will be revised to include several relevant information literacy learning outcomes. The revised courses will be co-taught during the fall 2013 or spring 2014 semester.

Participants will also take part in a “Showcase of Information Literacy Learning Progress” forum during the academic year to share results and encourage similar initiatives across the disciplines. Visit http://libguides.wvu.edu/infolit and go to the Faculty Academy box to click on the posters from past participants.

To apply for the program, visit http://wvufaculty.wvu.edu/opportunities and click on “Information Literacy Course Enhancement Stipends.”

The deadline is 5 p.m. March 15. For more information, contact Carroll Wilkinson, Director of Instruction and Information Literacy, at 293-0308 or carroll.wilkinson@mail.wvu.edu.