"Trifles" was written in 1916 when Susan Glaspell was 34. How unusual was it for a woman in that era to be a playwright or even to go to college?

The play "Trifles," is based on the true story of a woman
in Iowa who killed her husband. Glaspell was a reporter at the time. She was employed
with the Des Moines News for three years at the end of the
nineteenth century.

Because of Glaspell's extensive
exposure in covering the case, she had a particularly close vantage point of the court
proceedings, and came to be sympathetic of the accused woman's
plight.

Glaspell wrote her first play at the encouragement
of her husband: it was an unexpected move on her part. Glaspell, her husband George
Cook, and friends put together a theater company. Because of her extensive experience
years earlier covering the murder case, Glaspell decided to concentrate her efforts on a
play about the murder.

The fact that this was done
independently allowed Glaspell to be successful because she did not have to depend on
being published or discovered.

In terms of reporting, women
found it difficult to break into the journalism field. The fact that Glaspell was
writing when the newspaper business was just taking off in the US probably did not make
it easier to compete in a profession that was primarily run by men. However, women were
pushing to make a place for themselves in print media.  Movies showcasing female
reporters brought the idea of women in this career into the twentieth century
mainstream.

Female playwrights are said to have been
writing in England in the 1660s including Mary Pix.  Writers in general were usually
male, but some women experienced success writing with male pen names. One such author
was George Sands, a French writer. Online information on female playwrights is
scarce.

As far as education, women did not have access to a
college education until the  mid-1800s, while men had had the "privilege" many years
prior both in Europe, first, and ultimately in the American colonies. Access for women
generally became available after the end of the Civil
War.

It was not an easy inroad to make: it was especially
difficult in the field of medicine. In general, there was a great deal of intellectual
snobbery facing women by men who had little faith in a female's mental
capabilities.

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In 1870 only .7% of the female population went to
college. This percentage rose slowly, by 1900 the rate was 2.8% and it was only 7.6% by
1920.

<http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/college.htm>

While
college would not have been a standard path for women, the road was being forged at the
time Gaspell was working as a newspaper reporter.