Jury of Her Peers (text of story) | ENG 255 | ENG 102
Inspiration for Trifles and "A Jury of Her Peers" came from Susan Glaspell's reporting on a murder case in Iowa. On Dec.3, 1900, Margaret Hossack allegedly murdered John Hossack, her 59-year-old husband of 33 years. He was fatally wounded by two powerful blows to the head as he lay sleeping (Bryan 1313). Five of the couple's nine children were home at the time of the crime (Bryan 1314). Margaret was tried twice; the first trial (April 1901) ended in a guilty verdict and she was sentenced to life imprisonment. The second trial (one year after the first) ended in a hung jury and the case was dismissed. Margaret Hossack lived another 13 years and was buried next to her husband (Bryan 1356).
Before the first trial, the coroner's jury discovered a history of abuse by the husband in the Hossack household. At the trial, women neighbors called as witnesses spoke of Hossack's violent threats against his wife and some also told of their high respect for him (Bryan1330). In spite of a clear motive, prosecutors still had to convince the all-male jury that Margaret was capable of such a crime, that she was not a stereotypical weak, attractive, and well-mannered woman. In 1901 most of the all-male juries did not want to consider that some women were oppressed and abused in marriage and would strike out against their abusers (1333). In the courtroom the stories of the Hossack marital conflicts and of the conflicts between father and children (who staunchly defended their mother) were left incomplete. The children's testimony emphasized a reconciliation between the parents.
As a reporter in Iowa assigned to the trial, Susan Glaspell knew the community's attitudes and the narrow vision presented in the courtroom. In her fictional story she attempted to expose the injustice of that perspective.
Readers might look at two of the writer's changes in the fictional account of the trial:
the absence of the accused and
moving from a public place (courtroom) to a private one (farmhouse kitchen).
Work Cited
Bryan, Patricia. "Stories in Fiction and in Fact: Susan Glaspell's A Jury of Her Peers and the 1901 Murder Trial of Margaret Hossack." Stanford Law Review 49 (July 1997):1293-1363. Lexis-Nexis Legal Research. QCC Library, Worcester, MA.
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