Core members of the group are Susan Glaspell, her husband George Cram Cook, who were among the founders of the Provincetown Players; Floyd Dell, and Arthur Davison Ficke.

In the mid-1890s writer Charles Eugene Banks moved to Davenport from Chicago, and started a weekly newspaper devoted to literature and local social life.

Over the next decade Banks would mentor several young local aspiring writers (Susan Glaspell, George Cram Cook, and Floyd Dell) who would constitute the Davenport group.

As the young writers began to find success publishing their works, they left Davenport to advance their careers in Chicago and New York.

In addition to participating in the theater, Glaspell became "one of America's most widely read novelists", and she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for one of her plays, Alison's House.