Susan glaspell biography summary example
Susan Glaspell
Susan Keating Glaspell
Pen Name: Susan Glaspell
Born: July 1, 1876
Died: July 27, 1948
Susan Glaspell (1876 - 1948) co-founded the first modern American theater company, the Provincetown Players, and was a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, actress, novelist, and journalist. Most of her nine novels, fourteen plays and over fifty short stories are set in Iowa, where she was raised. Trifles (1916), her one-act play based on the murder trial she covered as a young reporter, is considered one of the great works in American theater as well as an important piece of feminist literature.
Glaspell was raised to value hard work on a farm in rural Davenport, Iowa. She often wrote about being worthy inheritors of the land, and was greatly influenced by the writings of Black Hawk, the Sauk American Indian chief, on whose former land she was raised. Susan was a precocious student, becoming a journalist at 18, and writing her own column at 20, using it to poke fun at Davenport's upper-class. She went to Drake University and excelled as a debater, representing the school at the state debates her senior year. (The photo featured in this biographical sketch is her 1948 graduation picture.)
In her early professional career, Glaspell excelled in a male-dominated field, becoming a reporter for The Des Moines Daily News where she covered murder cases and the state legislature.
She quit the paper and began writing and publishing fiction stories for Harper's and The Ladies' Home Journal, which financed her move to Chicago, where she wrote her first book, The Glory of the Conquered (1909), which became a The New York Times best-seller, allowing her to tour Europe for a year, extending her artistic range and influences.
Though well regarded for her short stories and novels, her plays earned her the greatest prestige and recognition for their ground-breaking influence. Trifles (1916) was considered a feminist masterpiece and Inheritors (1921) was Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. More books than SparkNotes. On July 1, 1876, Susan Keating Glaspell was born in the town of Davenport, Iowa to Alice and Elmer Glaspell, the latter of which sold hay and animal feed for a living. She grew up with one older and one younger brother, and although her father was a devout member of the Disciples of Christ, he maintained a weakness for swearing and horse-racing. When Susan was young, he allowed her to accompany him to homesteads in Iowa and the surrounding states, giving Glaspell a favorable impression of the people who lived and farmed in the region, which she later explored in her fiction. An intelligent child, Susan considered entering the teaching profession after high school but chose instead to become a local reporter in the hopes of becoming a writer. She then graduated with a philosophy degree from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and began to write for the Des Moines Daily News in 1899. While working as a journalist, she wrote short stories for Youth's Companion, selling a total of forty-three stories over the next two decades, many of which were set in Freeport, the fictional version of Davenport. In 1912, she published a collection of these stories entitled Lifted Masks, and she had by this time written two novels, The Glory of the Conquered and The Visioning. Soon after the publishing of Glaspell's second novel, she married George Cram Cook and befriended much of his literary circle. With him, she helped found a theatrical group called the Provincetown Players, which originated in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and moved to Greenwich Village in New York City under the influence of the playwright Eugene O'Neill. Under their direction, the Provincetown Players became an experimental theater group that later became a heavy influence on American drama. Along with acting for the group, Glaspell wrote eleven plays for the Provincetown Players between 1915 and 1922. The Provincetown Player Susan Glaspell (b. 1876–d. 1948) was among the most celebrated writers of the first half of the twentieth century. Cofounder of the Provincetown Players, the Greenwich Village little theater that revolutionized US drama in the 1910s and 1920s, she wrote fifteen plays and achieved critical acclaim as a dramatist of ideas. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1931 and directed the Midwestern Play Bureau of the Federal Theatre Project from 1936 to 1938. Glaspell was also an accomplished fiction writer. Over her life, she published more than sixty short stories, which came out in magazines ranging from Harper’s Bazaar and Munsey’s to Ladies’ Home Journal and Black Cat. In 1912 thirteen of her early stories came out in the collection Lifted Masks, which the American Library Association praised for its “well constructed stories of decided originality.” Glaspell also published nine novels, many of which were positively reviewed and listed as best sellers, a biography of her husband, George Cram (Jig) Cook, entitled The Road to the Temple (1926), and a children’s book, Cherished and Shared of Old (1941). At the height of her critical acclaim in the theater, the New York Morning Telegraph called her “the great American thinker in dramatic form,” while her New York Times obituary recognized she was “one of the nation’s most widely read novelists.” Glaspell’s popularity, along with that of other women writers, declined during the postwar years of American canon formation. Beginning in the 1970s, mostly due to feminist reappraisals of her one-act play Trifles (1916) and its short story version “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917), Glaspell was rediscovered and critical interest in her life and works rekindled. Born in Davenport, Iowa, to a family of pioneers, Glaspell became a New Woman, graduatin American dramatist 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." 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 rais
Susan Glaspell
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Susan Glaspell
Biography
Early life and career