Gene Stratton-Porter (August 17, 1863 - December 6, 1924) was an American author, screenwriter and naturalist who wrote fanciful, romantic, well-plotted stories set in the American Midwest.
Born Geneva Grace Stratton in Wabash County, Indiana, she married Charles D. Porter in 1886, and had one daughter, Jeannette, with him.
She became a wildlife photographer, specializing in the Limberlost Swamp of Indiana, before she explored writing and produced her first novel, The Song of the Cardinal. Her novels Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost are set in the swamp she loved and explored. She eventually wrote over 20 books.
Catherine Woolley, author of the "Ginnie and Geneva" series of children's books, may have named her character of Geneva Porter after Geneva Stratton-Porter.
Porter moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1920s to join the movie business, and set her last book, Her Father's Daughter, there. She died there in 1924 when her limousine was hit by a trolley car.
A building at Purdue University Calumet in Hammond, IN is named in her honor.
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