Susan Glaspell was born in Davenport, Iowa, probably in 1876, though she often gave the date of her birth as 1882. She attended schools there, graduating from Davenport High School in 1894. She attended Drake University in Des Moines and did course work at the University of Iowa and University of Chicago. The day after she graduated from Drake, she started work as a reporter at a Des Moines newspaper. After two years of reporting she had accumulated enough material to start writing, and she quit her job, moved back to Davenport, and devoted herself full time to free-lance writing. Her first book, The Glory of the Conquered, appeared in 1909. She made enough money on this book to move to the Latin Quarter of Paris for a year. On her return, she spent some time on a farm in Idaho before moving to Provincetown, Massachusetts. There, in 1913, she married George Cram Cook, another Iowan, and with him started a theatre company that was to become the Provincetown Players. Glaspell and Cook were active in the little theatre movement, and the Provincetown Players were known for presenting the work of American playwrights. Their two principal writers were Eugene O'Neill and Glaspell herself.