Born in Davenport, Iowa, Susan Glaspell was the daughter of an Irish immigrant mother; her father was a feed dealer. Following her graduation from Drake University, she worked as a reporter and began to publish short stories and novels. In 1911, she moved to New York City, where she met and married George Cram Cook, who also came from Davenport, Iowa. Collaborating with her husband, Glaspell wrote plays, and her husband directed them. During the summer, they resided on Cape Cod, where they helped to found the Playwrights' Theater and devoted their time to the Provincetown Players, a theatrical group that performed Glaspell's plays as well as those by other renowned playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay. In 1930, Glaspell won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for Alison's House, a dramatization of the life of a poet, thought to be based on Emily Dickinson. Trifles was published in 1916, three years before women in the United States were granted the right to vote.

Major works by Glaspell

Suppressed Desires (1916, play)
Trifles (1916, play)
"A Jury of Her Peers" (1917, short story based on Trifles)
Alison's House (1930, play, Pulitzer Prize)

Glaspell and the Web

This is a good general start page from Perspectives in American Literature. It includes a photo, bibliographies, study questions, and a student-written biography.

Want to read more by this author? This page has links to five works by Glaspell in etext, including "A Jury of Her Peers" if you'd like to read it for comparison to Trifles

Want to research Glaspell on the WWW? This page from American Literature on the Web has a lot of good Glaspell links.