Susan Glaspell

Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 28, 1948) was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company.

First known for her short stories (fifty were published), Glaspell also wrote nine novels, fifteen plays, and a biography. Often set in her native Midwest, these semi-autobiographical tales typically explore contemporary social issues, such as gender, ethics, and dissent, while featuring deep, sympathetic characters who make principled stands. Her 1930 play Alison's House earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

After her husband's death in Greece, she returned to the United States. During the Great Depression, Glaspell worked in Chicago for the Works Progress Administration, where she was Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project. Although a best-selling author in her own time, after her death Glaspell attracted less interest and her books went out of print. She was also noted for discovering playwright Eugene O'Neill.

Since the late 20th century, critical reassessment of women's contributions has led to renewed interest in her career and a revival of her reputation. In the early 21st century, Glaspell is today recognized as a pioneering feminist writer and America's first important modern female playwright. Her one-act play Trifles (1916) is frequently cited as one of the greatest works of American theatre. According to Britain's leading theatre critic, Michael Billington, she remains "American drama's best-kept secret."

Biography

Early life and career

Susan Glaspell was born in Iowa in 1876 to Elmer Glaspell, a hay farmer, and his wife Alice Keating, a public school teacher. She had an older brother, Raymond, and a younger brother, Frank. She was raised on a rural homestead just below the bluffs of the Mississippi River along the western edge of Davenport, Iowa. This property had been bought by her paternal great-grandfather James Glaspell from the federal government following its Black Hawk Purchase. Having a fairly conservative upbringing, "Susie" was remembered as "a precocious child" who would often rescue stray animals. As the family farm increasingly became surrounded by residential development, Glaspell's worldview was still shaped by the pioneer tales of her grandmother. She told of regular visits by Indians to the farm in the years before Iowa statehood. Growing up directly across the river from Black Hawk's ancestral village, Glaspell was also influenced by the Sauk leader's autobiography; he wrote that Americans should be worthy inheritors of the land. In 1891, her father sold the farm, and the family moved into Davenport.

Glaspell was an accomplished student in the city's public schools, taking an advanced course of study and giving a commencement speech at her 1894 graduation. By eighteen, she was earning a regular salary as a journalist for a local newspaper. By twenty, she wrote a weekly 'Society' column that lampooned Davenport's upper class.

At twenty-one, Glaspell enrolled at Drake University, against the local belief that college made women unfit for marriage. A philosophy major, she excelled in male-dominated debate competitions, winning the right to represent Drake at the state debate tournament her senior year. A Des Moines Daily News article on her graduation ceremony cited Glaspell as "a leader in the social and intellectual life of the university."

The day after graduation, Glaspell began working full-time for the Des Moines paper as a reporter, a rare position for a woman, particularly as she was assigned to cover the state legislature and murder cases. After covering the conviction of a woman accused of murdering her abusive husband, Glaspell abruptly resigned at age twenty-four.

She moved back to Davenport to focus on writing fiction. Unlike many new writers, she readily had her stories accepted and was published by the most widely read periodicals, including Harper's, Munsey's, Ladies' Home Journal, and Woman's Home Companion. It was a golden age of short stories. She used a large cash prize from a short story magazine to finance her move to Chicago, where she wrote her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, published in 1909. It was a best-seller, and The New York Times declared, "Unless Susan Glaspell is an assumed name covering that of some already well-known author—and the book has qualities so out of the ordinary in American fiction and so individual that this does not seem likely—The Glory of the Conquered brings forward a new author of fine and notable gifts."

Glaspell published her second novel, The Visioning, in 1911. The New York Times said of the book, "it does prove Miss Glaspell's staying power, her possession of abilities that put her high among the ranks of American storytellers." Her third novel, Fidelity, was published in 1915. The New York Times described it as "a big and real contribution to American novels."