Gene Stratton-Porter - Career

Career

In addition to writing works of natural history, Stratton-Porter became a wildlife photographer, specializing in the birds and moths in the Limberlost Swamp, one of the last of the wetlands of the lower Great Lakes Basin. The Limberlost and Wildflower Woods of northeastern Indiana were the laboratory for her studies and inspiration for her stories, novels, essays, photography, and movies.

There is evidence that Stratton-Porter's first book was The Strike at Shane's which was published anonymously. Her first attributed novel, The Song of the Cardinal, met with great commercial success. Her novels Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost are set in the wooded wetlands and swamps of the disappearing central Indiana ecosystems. She knew and loved these, and documented them extensively. Stratton-Porter wrote more than 20 books, both novels and natural history.

Although Stratton-Porter wanted to focus on nature books, it was her romantic novels that gained her fame and revenue. These generated the income that allowed her to pursue her nature studies. She was estimated to have more than 50 million readers, as her novels were translated into several languages, as well as Braille. She was an accomplished author, artist and photographer.

One of Stratton-Porter's last novels, Her Father's Daughter (1921), was set outside Los Angeles, California. She had moved about 1920 for health reasons and to expand her business ventures into the movie industry. This novel presented a unique window into Stratton-Porter's feelings about World War I-era racism and nativism, especially relating to immigrants of Asian descent. Stratton-Porter died in Los Angeles in 1924 when her limousine was struck by a streetcar.