Born in Davenport, Iowa, Susan Glaspell took a degree in philosophy from Drake University before becoming a newspaper reporter in Des Moines. She turned her play Trifles, based on a murder case she covered on the job, into a widely anthologized short story, “A Jury of Her Peers.” She married a freethinker who also believed in free love and unfettered drinking, making her life with him difficult. The couple moved to the East Coast, where they founded the Provincetown Players, an experimental theater group. Glaspell won the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for her play Alison’s House, which depicted the life of Emily Dickinson. She said she promoted “all progressive movements, whether feminist, social, or economic.”
In the McMahan textbook, at the end of “Trifles,” there is Question.
* Question 3:
What is the point of the women’s concern about the quilt and whether Mrs. Wright “was going to quilt it or knot it”?
* Question: What is the significance of the last line of the play:
COUNTY ATTORNEY: She was going to –what is it you call it ladies?
MRS HALE: We call it–knot it, Mr. Henderson.

Susan Glaspell 1882–1948

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