Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and "A Jury of Her Peers" are based on a real-life murder and trial; thus, understanding those events offers deeper insights into Glaspell’s works.
Glaspell was a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News when she was tasked with covering the murder of sixty-three-year-old John Hossack on December 2nd, 1900 in Indianola, Iowa. Hossack was struck twice in the head with an axe while he was sleeping. Margaret Hossack, his wife of over thirty years, said she was sleeping when this occurred but was awakened by a strange sound. She reported seeing a light on in another room and going to it. She then returned to Hossack along with her five children and saw his grievous wounds.
Initially, burglars were suspected, but nothing was missing from the house. The murder weapon was then discovered under the family corn crib. As neighbors intimated marital distress between the Hossacks, the sheriff arrested Mrs. Hossack; this occurred during the funeral itself. Margaret Hossack was charged with the murder of her husband, and her attorneys decided to waive the preliminary hearing and go directly to the grand jury. She requested and was given bail, and returned home.
The trial officially began on April 1, 1901, at the Polk County Courthouse. It lasted ten days, not including Sundays, and garnered intense public interest. On the first day, over 1200 people were said to have attended, and on the day of the verdict, over 2000 were reportedly present. There were seventy-eight witnesses (fifty-three for the prosecution and twenty-five for the defense).
According to scholar Linda Ben-Zvi, the witnesses were called to account for several things:“(1) Would it have been possible, as his son testified, for John Hossack, who had sustained two traumatic blows-one made with the axe head, the second with the blunt handle-to talk and call for his wife and children; (2) Was the blood found on the axe and the hairs later discovered nearby human, or were they, as claimed by the family, the residue of the turkey killed two days earlier for Thanksgiving; (3) How had the axe, which the youngest son said he placed inside the corn crib after killing the turkey, come to be found under it, in its usual place; (4) Had the axe and Mrs. Hossack's night clothes been washed to remove incriminating stains of blood; (5) Was the dog, who always barked when strangers appear, drugged on the night of the crime, as family members testified; (6) Had earlier domestic troubles in the Hossack house been resolved and all dissension ceased for over a year before the murder, as the family stated; and (7) Would it have been possible for an intruder or intruders to enter the house through the bedroom window, stand at the foot of the bed and reach up to strike the fatal blows without rousing the woman who slept by her husband's side?” There was apparently little to no focus on whether or not Margaret Hossack experienced violence in the home, though, informally, such rumors abounded.
Ben-Zvi’s account continues: “On the last day of the trial, County Attorney Clammer and Mr. McNeal summarized for the prosecution; and, as Glaspell predicted, McNeal was able to rouse the audience with his indictment—’She did it, gentlemen, and I ask you to return her in kind... she has forfeited her right to live and she should be as John Hossack, who lies rotting beneath the ground.’ He too had his own bombshell: Margaret Hossack had been pregnant and given birth to a child before their marriage. This, McNeal claimed, was the dark secret often referred to in the trial, the story Hossack said he would take to his grave, and the reason for the unhappiness in the Hossack home. Just how a pregnancy thirty-three years earlier could have been the sole cause of trouble in the marriage and how it proved Mrs. Hossack's guilt in the murder of her husband was not clear; but, as Glaspell reports, it provided the jury with the impression that she was a woman who could not be trusted. It was with this revelation that the trial ended.” It took less than a twenty-four hours for the jury to issue its verdict. Margaret Hossack was “found guilty as charged and was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.”
In April 1902, the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa agreed to hear the case on appeal. Noting several examples where the trial judge had ruled incorrectly on the evidence, the higher court overturned the original conviction and requested a new trial based on seven procedural points. The jury at the new trial in 1903 was unable to reach a verdict (nine voted for conviction and three for acquittal), so Mrs. Hossack was released and returned home.
