
The Davenport-born writer who won a Pulitzer, co-founded the Provincetown Players, and wrote the classic “Trifles.”
Susan Glaspell was born in 1876 in Davenport, Iowa, and began as a journalist before turning to fiction and drama. With her husband she co-founded the Provincetown Players, the influential theater company that launched Eugene O'Neill.
Her one-act “Trifles” (and its story version, “A Jury of Her Peers”) became an American classic, and she won the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Alison's House.”
Glaspell helped shape modern American theater and is now studied as an early feminist dramatist. Her Iowa roots run through her Davenport-set fiction.
She is among Iowa's most important literary figures.
The Davenport-born writer who won a Pulitzer, co-founded the Provincetown Players, and wrote the classic “Trifles.”
Susan Glaspell was from Davenport, Iowa.
1876–1948.
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