Susan Glaspell

"Quietly and with keen psychological insight, Miss Glaspell probes into these minds [of her characters] with a physician’s care to cure rather than to wound.”
— Harry Warfel, American Novelists of Today, 1951

Susan Glaspell, Davenport, Iowa native, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1930 for Allison's House, a play based on the life of poet Emily Dickinson. Born in 1882, she began her writing career at the turn of the century as a political reporter for the Des Moines Daily Capital. Glaspell soon moved back to Davenport to concentrate on fiction writing. She later journeyed to Provincetown, Massachusetts and, with her husband, founded the Provincetown Playhouse where playwright Eugene O'Neill's plays were produced. In addition to her plays, Glaspell wrote several novels that probe the psychology of women reacting to the ordinary problems of life. Her last novel was Judd Rankin's Daughter, published three years before her death in 1948 at age 66. Glaspell was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1976.