Susanna Rowson, née Haswell (1762 – 2 March 1824), was an American novelist, poet, playwright, religious writer, stage actress, and educator.

At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Lieutenant Haswell was placed under house arrest, and subsequently the family was moved inland, to Hingham and Abington, Massachusetts.

In 1778, his failing health led to a prisoner exchange, and the family was sent via Halifax, Nova Scotia to England, eventually settling near Kingston upon Hull.

Over the next three years in Philadelphia, she wrote a novel, an opera, a musical farce about the Whiskey Rebellion (The Volunteers), a poetical address to the American troops, and several songs for the company in addition to performing 57 roles on the stage in two seasons.

[5] In response to her seemingly new-found republicanism and the liberal gender roles in her work, Slaves in Algiers, she was attacked by William Cobbett, who referred to her as "our American Sappho" (she returned fire, calling him a "loathsome reptile" in her introduction to Trials of the Human Heart).

He had taken over the Federal Street Theatre in Boston, and the Rowson trio relocated there in part to be closer to the more familiar residence of her youth and her core American literary fan base.

The bankruptcy and major restructuring of the Boston theatre in 1797 would have sent Susanna and William to Charleston, but rather than head south they abandoned the stage after a few summer performances in Newport and Providence, Rhode Island.

Rowson also continued her writings, producing several novels, an additional work for the stage, a dictionary as well as the two geographies and as a contributor to the Boston Weekly Magazine (1802–1805).