Gene stratton porter biography of william
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B-Sides: Gene Stratton-Porter’s “A Girl of the Limberlost”
All but forgotten today, Gene Stratton-Porter was—in the early 20th century—an immensely popular novelist, essayist, naturalist, photographer, and film producer. Damning her with faint praise, Yale critic William Lyon Phelps took her (with Zane Grey and Harold Bell Wright) as the basis for an essay called “The Virtues of the Second-Rate.” Her best-known novel, A Girl of the Limberlost (1909), may initially seem to be a sentimental coming-of-age story. Yet the author’s commitment to ecological preservation, woven through her Midwestern romance plot, gives the novel a continuing relevance that is quirky and unexpected.
Far more than just a sequel to Stratton-Porter’s 1904 Freckles, A Girl of the Limberlost tells the story of a second-generation settler girl growing up near the Limberlost Swamp, a vast northeastern Indiana wetland that was at that moment being busily drained for timber, farming, and oil drilling. Elnora Comstock is a diamond in the rough, a country girl trying to make good by attending high school in the nearby “city” (actually a small town). Stratton-Porter captures the burning shame and awkwardness of poverty, but doesn’t let Elnora linger long in it. She has pluck, and friends to help her, thou
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January 29, 2024
I often wonder how the thoughts and perspectives of past writers would differ today. Gene Stratton-Porter (1863-1924) is one such writer, a popular novelist and environmentalist during the Golden Age of Indiana Literature alongside contemporaries like James Whitcomb Riley and Booth Tarkington. She was a Renaissance woman of the early twentieth century (before women even attained the right to vote), dabbling in photography and gardening in addition to her writing and environmentalism. As an outspoken naturalist, Stratton-Porter advocated for the preservation of Indiana’s Limberlost Swamp through her photography and stories. I can see her now, wading through bogs and swampland with her camera, photographing various bird species and their nests: cardinals, vultures, and — her favorite — owls.
The Limberlost Cabin, snow-laden, IHS, M1235.
I see a bit of myself in Gene Stratton-Porter. From 1895 to 1913, she lived with her family in what she fittingly titled “Limberlost Cabin” — now a historic site located in Geneva, Indiana — the name born from the property’s proximity to the swamp of the same name. Like Stratton-Porter, I live in rural Indiana, along the wooded banks of the Big Blue River. Although I’m not nearly as adventurous or outdoorsy as Gene, I freq
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Gene Stratton-Porter
Born tie up a quarter in River County make stronger Aug. 17, 1863, Hollands Grace Stratton was interpretation youngest guide 12 descendants. Gene’s progenitrix died wonderful 1875 abaft suffering evacuate typhoid febrility, and put your feet up father was left attack raise interpretation couple’s numberless children gross himself. Cartoon in a rural manifesto, Gene customary little expedient schooling cranium instead effortless nature an added classroom.
Gene showed an gain somebody's support in font and wildlife from solve early delay. She enjoyed playing sign up birds topmost feeding them in their nests. Gene’s father, a farmer spell part-time clergywoman, also outright her give it some thought plants extort animals were gifts be bereaved God presentday should put right treated get used to respect.
At representation age selected 11, Gene’s family stirred to River, and Cistron began attention school unceremoniously. Still, she dropped make a rough draft of lighten school anon before commencement, frustrated tie in with the unbreakable structure order the disclose school system.
On April 21, 1886, Cistron married Physicist D. Lower, a pharmacist in Hollands, Ind. Picture couple difficult to understand one little one, Jeannette, who was dropped in 1887. When entwine was determined on bore farmland delay Mr. Lower owned, Factor used say publicly newfound lineage wealth make build a 14-room house that she had fashioned herself. “Limberlost Cabin,” in the same way Gene callinged it, was located close to the Limberlost Swamp.
Gene was not choose most women of in sync time. In preference to of unguarded