While her marriage to Charles Porter provided financial security and personal independence, Gene sought additional roles beyond those of wife and mother. She took up writing in 1895 as an outlet for self-expression and as a means to earn her own income. Stratton-Porter felt that as long as her work did not interfere with the needs of her family, she was free to pursue her own interests. She began her literary career by observing and writing about birdlife of the upper
Wabash River valley and the nature she had seen during visits to the Limberlost Swamp, less than a mile from her home in Geneva, Indiana. The Limberlost Swamp, the Limberlost Cabin at Geneva, and after 1913, the Cabin at Wildflower Woods at Sylvan Lake in northeastern Indiana became the laboratories for her nature studies and the inspiration for her short stories, novels, essays, photography, and movies. Stratton-Porter wrote twenty-six books that included twelve novels, eight nature studies, two books of poetry, and four collections of stories and children's books. Of the fifty-five books selling one million or more copies between 1895 and 1945, five of them were novels written by Stratton-Porter. Among Stratton-Porter's best-selling novels were
Freckles (1904),
A Girl of the Limberlost (1909),
The Harvester (1911),
Laddie (1913), and ''
Michael O'Halloran (1915). Stratton-Porter incorporated everyday occurrences and acquaintances into her works of fiction. Many of her works delve into difficult subject matter such as themes of abuse, prostitution, and abandonment. In the case of Her Father's Daughter'' (1921), the anti-Asian sentiment that her writing reflected was prevalent in the United States during that era. Her other writing also introduced the concept of land and wildlife conservation to her readers. Stratton-Porter preferred to focus on nature books, but it was her romantic novels that gained her fame and wealth, although she often did create an irrefutable link between nature and romance in her plotlines; nature often represents a comfort for her characters, as she felt it was for her as a child. These romantic novels generated the income that allowed her to pursue her nature studies. Her novels have been translated into twenty-three languages, as well as
Braille. At its peak in the early 1910s, her readership was estimated at 50 million, with earnings from her literary works estimated at $2 million. Stratton-Porter was soon submitting short stories and nature-related material to magazines on a regular basis with increasing success. Her first short story, "Laddie, the Princess, and the Pie," was published in
Metropolitan magazine in September 1901. To attract a wider audience Stratton Porter decided to include fictional elements in her
nature writing and began writing novels. Stratton-Porter's writing also included poetry and children's stories, in addition to essays and editorials that were published in magazines with nationwide circulation such as ''
McCall's and Good Housekeeping''.
Novels Although it was published anonymously in 1893, circumstantial evidence suggests that Stratton-Porter's first book was ''The Strike at Shane's.'' However, Stratton-Porter never acknowledged that she had written it and its author was never revealed. Bobbs-Merrill published her first, full-length attributed novel,
The Song of the Cardinal (1903), about a red bird living along the Wabash River. The book explained how birds lived in the wild and also included her photographs. Although the novel was a modest commercial success and was warmly received by literary critics, Stratton-Porter's publisher believed that nature stories would not become as popular as romance novels. For her second novel, Stratton-Porter decided to combine nature and romance.
Freckles (1904), which was published by
Doubleday, Page and Company, became a bestseller. The book's popularity among readers helped to launch her career as a successful novelist, despite its lackluster reviews from critics.
A Girl of the Limberlost (1909), which was highly successful and her best-known work, brought her worldwide recognition. Its central character, Elnora Comstock, a lonely, poverty-stricken girl living on a farm in Adams County, goes to the Limberlost Swamp to escape from her troubles and earns money to pay for her education by collecting and selling moth specimens. The main character's strong, individualistic nature is similar to Stratton-Porter's. Literary critics called the novel a "well written" and "wholesome story." Initial sales of her third novel,
At the Foot of the Rainbow (1907), about two friends who enjoy fishing and trapping, were "disappointing," but Stratton-Porter reached the peak of her popularity with the publication of her next novel,
The Harvester (1911), which centers around David Langston, who harvests and in turn sells medicinal herbs, and his love interest, Ruth Jameson, who embodies his ideal partner. It reached number one on the best-seller list in 1912.
Freckles (1904),
A Girl of the Limberlost (1909), and
The Harvester (1911) are set in the wooded wetlands and swamps of northeast Indiana. Stratton-Porter loved the area and its wildlife and had documented them extensively. Stratton-Porter's next novel,
Laddie: A True Blue Story (1913), another of her best-selling novels, included elements that corresponded to her early life. It was written while she supervised construction of her home at Sylvan Lake in Noble County, Indiana, and she described it as her most autobiographical novel. The narrative is told in the first person by the twelfth child of the "Stanton" family. The title character is modeled after Stratton-Porter's deceased older brother, Leander, whom Stratton-Porter nicknamed Laddie. As in Stratton-Porter's own family, Laddie is connected with the land and identifies with their father's vocation of farming. ''
Michael O'Halloran (1915), her seventh novel, was inspired by a newsboy she had encountered in Philadelphia while visiting her daughter, Jeannette, and her family. A Daughter of the Land'' (1918), her next novel, did not sell as well as her earlier works. Over time, sales of Stratton-Porter's novels had slowly declined and by 1919 her status as a best-selling author began to fade. Undeterred, she continued to write until her death in 1924. ''Her Father's Daughter'' (1921), one of Stratton-Porter's last novels, was set in southern California, outside Los Angeles, where she had moved around 1920. The novel is especially biased against immigrants of Asian descent. Judith Reick Long, one of Stratton-Porter's biographers, stated that
World War I-era racial prejudice and
nativism were prevalent in the United States and it was not unusual to be anti-Asian in southern California at that time. Barbara Olenyik Morrow, another of her biographers, explained that the book was intentionally playing to the era's ethnic prejudices.
The Literary Review, ignoring its anti-Asian content, noted its "wholesome charm."
The White Flag (1923), criticized as an old-fashioned melodrama, failed to make the bestseller list; however, the story was serialized in
Good Housekeeping magazine beginning in 1923, in advance of the book's release. By the time of its publication, Stratton-Porter's interests had shifted toward filmmaking.
The Keeper of the Bees (1925) and
The Magic Garden (1927) were the last of Stratton-Porter's novels completed before her death. Both of them were written at her home on Catalina Island and published posthumously.
The Keeper of the Bees is a story about a World War I veteran who regains his heath through the restorative "power and beauty of nature." The story was serialized in ''McCall's
magazine from February through September 1925 and was published in book form later that year. The Magic Garden'', about a girl of divorced parents, was written for her two granddaughters, whose parents divorced when they were young. Filmmaker James Leo Meehan, Stratton-Porter's business partner and son-in-law, wrote a screenplay of the novel shortly after Stratton-Porter had completed the manuscript. Millions of copies of Stratton-Porter's novels were sold and most of them became best sellers, but the literary establishment criticized them as "unrealistic," "too virtuous," and "idealistic." Despite the criticisms, she was popular among readers of her novels.
Nature books Stratton-Porter, a keen observer of nature, wrote eight nonfiction nature books that were moderate sellers compared to her novels.
What I Have Done With Birds (1907) first appeared as a six-month illustrated series for the ''
Ladies' Home Journal'' from April to August 1906. The
Bobbs-Merrill Company published the material in book format that also includes Stratton-Porter's photographs.
Birds of the Bible (1909), an illustrated reference book published by Jennings and Graham of
Cincinnati, included eighty-one of Stratton-Porter's photographs. Both of these nature books were slow sellers.
Music of the Wild (1910), also published by Jennings and Graham, warned of the adverse effects that the destruction of trees and swamps would have on rainfall. Her warnings appeared nearly two decades before the
Dust Bowl of the 1930s and well in advance of present-day environmental concerns about climate change.
Moths of the Limberlost (1912), the nature book of which Stratton-Porter was "most proud," was dedicated to
Neltje Blanchan, a fellow nature writer and the wife of her publisher,
Frank Nelson Doubleday. Prior to her move to California in 1919, Stratton-Porter completed the manuscript for
Homing with the Birds (1919). Praised for its content, the book described birdlife using easy-to-understand language for the general public.
Wings (1923) was published a year before her death; ''Tales You Won't Believe'' (1925) was published posthumously. While literary critics called her novels overly sentimental, academics dismissed her
nature writing because they felt that her research methods were unscientific. Stratton-Porter, who was not a trained scientist, centered her field research on her own interests in observing the domestic behavior of wild birds, such as their nest-building, diets, and social behavior. Her writing tried to explain nature in ways that her readers could understand and avoided scientific jargon and tedious, dry statistics.
Magazine articles Stratton-Porter regularly contributed articles and photographs to magazines that included
Metropolitan,
Recreation,
Outing,
Country Life in America, and ''Ladies' Home Journal''. After her move to California in 1919, Stratton-Porter wrote articles for the
Izaak Walton League's publication,
Outdoor America, and a thirteen-part series of nature articles for
Good Housekeeping. She also agreed to write a series of editorials for ''McCall's'' magazine in a monthly column called the "Gene Stratton-Porter's Page," beginning in January 1922. ''Tales You Won't Believe
(1925), a collection of articles that Stratton-Porter had written for Good Housekeeping
, and Let Us Highly Resolve
(1927), a collection of essays that had appeared in McCall's'' magazine, were published after her death.
Children's stories and poetry Morning Face (1916), a collection of children's stories that also included her photographs, was dedicated to her granddaughter, Jeannette Monroe, whom Stratton-Porter had nicknamed "Morning Face." "Symbols," her first poem to appear in a national magazine, was published in
Good Housekeeping in January 1921.
The Fire Bird (1922), a
Native American tragedy, was the first of her long narrative poems to be published in book form. Its sales were weak and it was not well received by literary critics. In 1922
Good Housekeeping published Stratton-Porter's poem, "Euphorbia," in three installments and paid her $12,500, "the most she had ever received for her poetry."
Nature photographer In addition to writing, Stratton-Porter was an accomplished artist and wildlife photographer, specializing in the birds and
moths that lived in the
Limberlost Swamp, one of the last of the wetlands of the lower
Great Lakes Basin. She also made sketches of her observations as part of her fieldwork. Stratton-Porter was especially noted for her close-up photographs of wildlife in their natural habitat. In one of her early photographic studies, she documented the development of a black
vulture over a period of three months. Stratton-Porter reported in
What I Have Done with Birds (1907) that the effort "yielded me the only complete series of Vulture studies ever made." Stratton-Porter began photographing birds in the Limberlost Swamp and along the Wabash River near her home in Geneva, Indiana, after her husband, Charles, and daughter, Jeannette, presented her with a camera as a Christmas gift in 1895. She submitted some of her early photographs to
Recreation magazine in the late 1890s and wrote a regular camera column for the publication in 1901.
Outing magazine hired her to do similar work in 1902. Unhappy with images the magazine editors suggested to accompany her writing, she began to submit her own photographs as illustrations for her articles. She also preferred to use her own photographs to illustrate her nature books. Thirteen of her wildlife photographs were published in 1900 in the
American Annual of Photography, which also included her views on her fieldwork. Many of the photographs in
Music of the Wild (1910) were taken at her Sylvan Lake home in northeastern Indiana. Stratton-Porter preferred to photograph wildlife in their natural environment.
Naturalist and conservationist Through her writing and photography, Stratton-Porter demonstrated "her strong desire to instill her love of nature in others in order to improve their lives and preserve the natural world." She also opposed the destruction of wetlands developed for commercial use. After the turn of the twentieth century, when the Limberlost Swamp's trees were cut for timber and its shrubs and vines were killed, the resulting commercial development, which included oil drilling, destroyed its wildlife. The swamp was drained into the Wabash River. In 1917 Stratton-Porter became more active in the conservation movement when the
Indiana General Assembly passed legislation to allow drainage of state-owned swamps in Noble and
LaGrange Counties. She joined with others to urge the state legislature to repeal the law that would lead to the destruction of wetlands in northeastern Indiana. Although the law was repealed in 1920, the area's swamps were eventually drained. In 1922 Stratton-Porter became a founding member of the Izaak Walton League, a national conservation group, and joined its efforts to save the wild
elk at
Jackson Hole,
Wyoming, from extinction. Stratton-Porter called on the readers of
Outdoor America, the league's publication, to take prompt action. She was also a strong advocate of land and
wetland conservation. As she wrote in an essay, "All Together, Heave," for
Outdoor America in 1922, "If we do not want our land to dry up and blow away, we must replace at least part of our trees" and urged conservation of American waterways.
Movie producer Stratton-Porter, a "pioneer" in the
Hollywood film industry, was dissatisfied with the movie adaptation of her novels by movie studios. Because she wanted more control over the production work, Stratton-Porter expanded her business ventures to include her own production studio to make moving pictures based on her novels. Eight of her novels have been made into movies.
Paramount Pictures produced
Freckles, the first film based on her novels in 1917, but Stratton-Porter was unhappy with the movie because it did not closely follow her novel and decided to make her own. In 1924 Stratton-Porter formed her own
movie studio and production company. Gene Stratton-Porter Productions created moving pictures that were closely based on her novels. Before her death in December 1924, Stratton-Porter's production company had produced two films, ''Michael O'Halloran
(1923) and A Girl of the Limberlost
(1924), and she had completed her novel The Keeper of the Bees'' for a third film. Stratton-Porter's stories remained popular among filmmakers after her death.
RKO Pictures, a successor to Film Booking Offices, made
Freckles and
Laddie in 1935.
Monogram Pictures made
A Girl of the Limberlost (1934),
Keeper of the Bees (1935), and
Romance of the Limberlost (1938).
A Girl of the Limberlost was adapted four times for film, first as a silent film produced by Stratton-Porter's production company in 1924 with
Gloria Grey in the title role. The 1934 version was directed by
W. Christy Cabanne and its cast included
Marian Marsh in the starring role and silent-era film stars
Henry B. Walthall,
Betty Blythe, and
Louise Dresser, an Indiana native. The 1945 version included
Ruth Nelson. The 1990 made-for-television movie starred
Joanna Cassidy as Stratton-Porter.
Romance of the Limberlost (1938), directed by
William Nigh, featured Indiana actress
Marjorie Main in the role of the mean stepmother.
The Keeper of the Bees was adapted four times as a movie. It was first released a silent film in 1925, starring
Robert Frazer; in 1935 as a Monogram film starring
Neil Hamilton; in 1942 for
Columbia Pictures; and as
Keeper of the Bees in a 1947 adaptation that was loosely based on the original novel. Stratton-Porter's granddaughter, Gene Stratton Monroe, played Little Scout in the 1925 version. ==Later years==