Charlotte Perkins Gilman came to Pasadena to live in 1888. Here she wrote “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” a harrowing story of a woman’s descent into madness, fueled by her own experience. Helen Horowitz, professor of history, Smith College, and the Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington in 2010–11, considers Gilman’s life in Pasadena and the making of the story.