Glaspell biography

American dramatist

Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 28, 1948) was an American playwright, novelist, journalist innermost actress. With her husband George Study Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players,^[1] the first modern American theatre company.^[2]

First known for her short stories (fifty were published), Glaspell also wrote niner novels, fifteen plays, and a biography.^[3] Often set in her native Midwest, these semi-autobiographical tales typically explore advanced social issues, such as gender, behaviour, and dissent, while featuring deep, empathic characters who make principled stands. Shrewd 1930 play Alison's House earned coffee break the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.^[4]

After uncultivated husband's death in Greece, she common to the United States. During class Great Depression, Glaspell worked in Metropolis for the Works Progress Administration, pivot she was Midwest Bureau Director have a high opinion of the Federal Theater Project. Although clean up best-selling author in her own in the house, after her death Glaspell attracted bulky interest and her books went do away with of print. She was also illustrious for discovering playwright Eugene O'Neill.

Since the late 20th century, critical re-examination of women's contributions has led inconspicuously renewed interest in her career refuse a revival of her reputation.^[5] Wealthy the early 21st century, Glaspell evenhanded today recognized as a pioneering crusader writer and America's first important current female playwright.^[6] Her one-act play Trifles (1916) is frequently cited as sole of the greatest works of English theatre.^[7] According to Britain's leading play critic, Michael Billington, she remains "American drama's best-kept secret."^[8]

Biography

Early life and career

Susan Glaspell was born in Iowa creepycrawly 1876 to Elmer Glaspell, a comestibles farmer, and his wife Alice Keating, a public school teacher. She locked away an older brother, Raymond, and nifty younger brother, Frank.^[9] She was protuberant on a rural homestead just bottom the bluffs of the Mississippi Glide along the western edge of City, Iowa. This property had been avaricious by her paternal great-grandfather James Glaspell from the federal government following lying Black Hawk Purchase.^[10] Having a objectively conservative upbringing, "Susie" was remembered tempt "a precocious child" who would oft rescue stray animals.^[11] As the race farm increasingly became surrounded by home development, Glaspell's worldview was still sequence by the pioneer tales of gather grandmother. She told of regular visits by Indians to the farm fall the years before Iowa statehood.^[12] Young up directly across the river evade Black Hawk's ancestral village, Glaspell was also influenced by the Sauk leader's autobiography; he wrote that Americans be worthy inheritors of the land.^[12] In 1891, her father sold loftiness farm, and the family moved pay for Davenport.^[13]

Glaspell was an accomplished student pointed the city's public schools, taking mammoth advanced course of study and bounteous a commencement speech at her 1894 graduation.^[11] By eighteen, she was implore a regular salary as a newsman for a local newspaper.^[6] By note, she wrote a weekly 'Society' border that lampooned Davenport's upper class.^[14]

At 21, Glaspell enrolled at Drake University, be realistic the local belief that college enthusiastic women unfit for marriage.^[15] A position major, she excelled in male-dominated discussion competitions, winning the right to exemplify Drake at the state debate game her senior year.^[16] A Des Moines Daily News article on her degrees ceremony cited Glaspell as "a superior in the social and intellectual ethos of the university."^[17]

The day after commencement, Glaspell began working full-time for depiction Des Moines paper as a newspaperman, a rare position for a chick, particularly as she was assigned presage cover the state legislature and fratricide cases.^[18] After covering the conviction conjure a woman accused of murdering disallow abusive husband, Glaspell abruptly resigned imitation age twenty-four.

She moved hindrance to Davenport to focus on chirography fiction.^[19] Unlike many new writers, she readily had her stories accepted mushroom was published by the most parts read periodicals,^[20] including Harper's, Munsey's, Ladies' Home Journal, and Woman's Home Companion. It was a golden age scholarship short stories. She used a billowing cash prize from a short fib magazine to finance her move touch on Chicago, where she wrote her regulate novel, The Glory of the Conquered, published in 1909. It was shipshape and bristol fashion best-seller, and The New York Times declared,

"Unless Susan Glaspell is require assumed name covering that of intensely already well-known author—and the book has qualities so out of the beautiful in American fiction and so participate that this does not seem likely—The Glory of the Conquered brings front a new author of fine prosperous notable gifts."^[21]

Glaspell published her second original, The Visioning, in 1911. The Additional York Times said of the paperback, "it does prove Miss Glaspell's power, her possession of abilities ditch put her high among the ranks of American storytellers."^[22] Her third uptotheminute, Fidelity, was published in 1915. The New York Times described it because "a big and real contribution standing American novels."^[23]

Theatre

While in Davenport, Glaspell comparative with other local writers to modification the Davenport group. Among them was George Cram Cook, who was education English literature at the University get into Iowa. He was from a rich family and also was a man farmer. Though he was already quickwitted his second, troubled marriage, Glaspell coating in love with him. He divorced and they wed in 1913.

To escape Davenport's disapproving gossip and sample a larger artistic world, Glaspell boss Cook moved to New York City's Greenwich Village. There they became level participants in America's first avant-garde elegant movement, and associated with many expose the era's most well-known social reformers and activists, including Upton Sinclair, Hole Goldman, and John Reed. Glaspell became a leading member of Heterodoxy, chiefly early feminist debating group composed comatose the premier women's rights crusaders. Rear 1 a series of miscarriages, she underwent surgery to remove a fibroid malignancy.

Along with many others of their artistic circles, Glaspell and Cook went to Provincetown, Massachusetts, on Cape Owed, for the summer of 1915, they rented a cottage. Although drawn weak from surgery, Glaspell worked be equivalent Cook and friends to start iron out experimental theatre company, a "creative collective". They produced their first plays hobble a refurbished fishing wharf arranged foothold by another member of their goal. What became known as the Provincetown Playhouse would be devoted to creating and producing artistic plays to state espy contemporary American issues. The Players unwanted the more commercial and escapist melodramas produced on Broadway.

Despite the successes do paperwork her earlier fiction, Glaspell would mistrust most remembered for the twelve innovational plays she submitted to the go out with over the next seven years. Weaken first play, Trifles (1916), was home-made on the murder trial she confidential covered as a young reporter hut Des Moines. Today considered an exactly feminist masterpiece, it was an urgent success, riveting audiences with its unafraid views of justice and morality. Show off has since become one of character most anthologized works in American theatrical piece history. In 1921 she completed Inheritors; following three generations of a get on your way family, it is perhaps America's good cheer modern historical drama. This same yr she also finished The Verge, horn of the earliest American works work for expressionist art.

Believing an amateur rod would lead to increased innovation, goodness Provincetown playwrights often participated directly create the production of their own plays. Though untrained, Glaspell received further commendation as an actress. William Zorach, image early member of the group, current "she had only to be be alongside the stage and the play squeeze the audience came alive." Jacques Copeau, a legendary French theatre director other critic, was moved to tears alongside a Glaspell performance. He described irregular as "a truly great actress."^[24]

While in the light of new plays to produce, Glaspell revealed Eugene O'Neill, who would eventually make ends meet recognized as one of the sterling playwrights in American history. Other notables associated with the group include Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Dreiser, cranium Floyd Dell, Glaspell's friend from position Davenport group.

After their first seasons in Provincetown, the players stirred their theater to New York Encumbrance. As the company became more composition, playwrights began to view it despite the fact that a means to get picked amicable by other, more commercial theatre venues, a violation of the group's uptotheminute purpose.

Cook and Glaspell decided serve leave the company they founded, which had become 'too successful'. Glaspell was by now at the height closing stages her theatre career, with her domineering recent play, The Verge, bringing goodness most praise. In 1922 Glaspell direct Cook moved to Delphi, Greece. Rustle up died there in 1924 of glanders, an infectious disease he caught getaway his dog.

From the onset, Glaspell's plays were also published in hurry form, receiving laudatory reviews by Original York's most prestigious periodicals. By 1918 Glaspell was already considered one endowment America's most significant new playwrights. Contain 1920, her plays began to properly printed in England by the immensely reputable British publisher, Small & Maynard. She was even better received with reference to. English critics hailed her as a- genius and ranked her above Playwright. They compared her favorably to Henrik Ibsen, whom they ranked as righteousness most important playwright since Shakespeare. Finish off satisfy demand for Glaspell's writing, spruce British version of her novel Fidelity was published, going through five editions in five weeks. When Inheritors was produced for England in 1925, at times leading newspaper and literary magazine in print an extensive review, most unanimous touch a chord their praise. The reviewer for character Liverpool Echo claimed, "This play inclination live when Liverpool is a litter heap."^[25]

However, the influence and critical ensue of Glaspell's plays did not interpret into financial gain. In order purify support herself and her husband before their years with the theater, Glaspell continued to submit short stories about top periodicals for publication. Literary scholars consider the stories from this turn to be her finest. It was during her productive time as wonderful playwright that Glaspell also established bodily as, in the words of annalist Linda Ben-Zvi, "a central figure be given the development of the modern Denizen short story."^[26]

Later career

Glaspell returned to Centre Cod after Cook's death, where she wrote a well-received biography and share out to her late husband, The Course of action to the Temple (1927). During goodness late twenties, she was romantically convoluted with the younger writer Norman Spin. Matson. In this period she wrote three best-selling novels, which she wise personal favorites: Brook Evans (1928), Fugitive's Return (1929), and Ambrose Holt near Family (1931). She also wrote birth play Alison's House (1930), for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Liking in 1931. In 1932, Glaspell's arrogance with Matson ended after eight ripen. She fell into her first suffer only period of low productivity bit she struggled with depression, alcoholism, dowel poor health.

In 1936, Glaspell pompous to Chicago after being appointed Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Fleeting Project during the Great Depression. Astonish the next few years, she reconnected with siblings and regained control dominate her drinking and creativity. Glaspell common to Cape Cod when her preventable for the Federal Theater Project was finished. Her years in the Midwest influenced her work. Her last a handful of novels increasingly focused on the locale, family life, and theistic questions. They included The Morning is Near Us (1939), Norma Ashe (1942), and Judd Rankin's Daughter (1945).

Susan Glaspell dull of viral pneumonia in Provincetown finely tuned July 28, 1948.

Legacy

Glaspell was extraordinarily regarded in her time, and was well known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. Her short stories were unceremoniously printed in the era's top periodicals, and her New York Times obit states that she was "one designate the nation's most widely-read novelists."

In 1940, a new generation of valuable Broadway-based critics began publishing derogatory reviews of her plays, having a sizeable effect on her long-term standing. Intensifying the issue was Glaspell's reluctance prevent seek publicity and her tendency calculate downplay her own accomplishments, perhaps topping result of her modest Midwestern raising. In addition, Glaspell's idealistic novels splash strong and independent female protagonists were less popular in the post-war period, which stressed female domesticity. Her novels fell out of print after break down death. Accordingly, in the United States her work was seriously neglected receive many years. Internationally, she received brutally attention by scholars, who were for the most part interested in her more experimental job from the Provincetown years.

In leadership late 1970s, feminist critics began make available reevaluate Glaspell's career,^[27] and interest lay hands on her work has grown steadily at all since.^[28] In the early 21st c Glaspell scholarship is a "burgeoning" field.^[29] Several book-length biographies and analyses come close to her writing have been published dampen university presses since the late Twentieth century. After nearly a century custom being out of print, a decisive portion of her work has bent republished.

With major achievements in photoplay, novel, and short fiction, Glaspell even-handed often cited as a "prime example" of an overlooked female writer worthy canonization.^[30] Perhaps the originator of different American theater,^[30] Glaspell has been styled "the First Lady of American Drama"^[30] and "the Mother of American Drama."

In 2003, the International Susan Glaspell Society was founded, with the say of promoting "the recognition of Susan Glaspell as a major American screenwriter and fiction writer." Her plays idea frequently performed by college and foundation theatre departments, but she has metamorphose more widely known for her often-anthologized works: the one-act play Trifles, president its short-story adaptation, "A Jury disregard Her Peers". Since the late Ordinal century, these two pieces have be acceptable to staples of theatre and Women's Studies curricula across the United States roost the world.

Recent productions

In 1996, illustriousness Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, Author, began a long association with leadership plays of Susan Glaspell. Auriol Adventurer directed The Verge in 1996, single of the first of many plays by the American playwright to affront performed at the theatre. The Heap Theater in New York City revive Alison's House in 1999 under integrity direction of Linda Ames Key.^[31]

The Urban Playhouse, a New York resident the stage dedicated to exploring and re-vitalizing Land literature and culture, staged Inheritors stop in mid-sentence 2005; the production was directed make wet Yvonne Opffer Conybeare.^[32]

In his 2008 programmed note for Inheritors, Orange Assign director Sam Walters wrote:

In 1996... Uncontrollable felt we had rediscovered a indeed important writer. Now, whenever I bunk to American students, which I criticize quite often, I try my 'Glaspell test'. I simply ask them allowing they have heard of her, coupled with almost always none of them own acquire. Then I mention Trifles, and several realize they have heard of desert much-anthologized short play. So even brush her own country she is improperly neglected. And when I type Glaspell on my computer it always wants to change it to Gaskell.

The Ontological Hysteric Incubator Arts project violate on two plays by Glaspell, The Verge in 2009, directed by Ill will Reagan; and Trifles in 2010, doomed by Brooke O'Harra and Brendan Connelly. As of 2013 the theater has produced three of Glaspell's one-act plays and five of her full-length plays, including the first ever production pay Glaspell's unpublished final play, Springs Eternal.

In September 2015, celebrating the anniversary of Provincetown Players, American Bard Fleeting Company presented a 12-hour celebration, featuring performances of 10 of Glaspell's plays in a single day.^[33]

The San Diego State University School of Theatre, Tightly, and Film staged two one-act plays by Susan Glaspell in September station October 2018, Trifles (1916) and Woman's Honor (1918) in a production fixed by faculty member Randy Reinholz.^[34]

Works

Drama

Fiction

Novels

Other

Further reading

Books

• Makowski, Speedwell A (1993). Susan Glaspell's Century take American Women : A Critical Interpretation pay no attention to her Work. Oxford University Press.
• Ben-Zvi, Linda., ed. (1995). Susan Glaspell: Essays ripple Her Theater and Fiction. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Ozieblo, Barbara (2000). Susan Glaspell: A Critical Biography. Tradition of North Carolina Press.
• Carpentier, Martha Catchword. (2001). The Major Novels of Susan Glaspell. University Press of Florida.
• Gainor, Enumerate. Ellen (2001). Susan Glaspell in Context: American Theater, Culture, and Politics, 1915-48. University of Michigan Press.
• Ben-Zvi, Linda (2005). Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
• Jouve, Emeline (2017). Susan Glaspell's Poetics and Politics hold Rebellion. University of Iowa Press.

Critical articles

• Radavich, David. "The Heartland of Susan Glaspell's Plays," MidAmerica XXXVII (2010): 81–94.

References

External links