To escape Davenport's disapproving gossip and seek a larger artistic world, Glaspell and Cook moved to New York City's Greenwich Village. There they became key participants in America's first avant-garde artistic movement, and associated with many of the era's most well-known social reformers and activists, including Upton Sinclair, Emma Goldman, and John Reed. Glaspell became a leading member of Heterodoxy, an early feminist debating group composed of the premier women's rights crusaders. After a series of miscarriages, she underwent surgery to remove a fibroid tumor.