The Literature of Prescription:  Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the "Yellow Wall-Paper, " a travelling exhibit from the National Institute of Health, is currently on display in the lobby of the library.  In the late nineteenth century, at a time when women were challenging traditional ideas about gender that excluded them from political and intellectual life, medical and scientific experts drew on notions of female weakness to justify inequality between the sexes. Artist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who was discouraged from pursuing a career to preserve her health, rejected these ideas in a terrifying short story titled “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” The famous tale served as an indictment of the medical profession and the social conventions restricting women’s professional and creative opportunities. This powerful exhibit chronicles Gilman's life and legacy.