By 1917, Hoosier Gene Stratton-Porter was one of the most famous and commercially successful authors in America. Five of her novels were best-sellers. She published dozens of columns in several prominent American magazines. And her nature photography was celebrated by professional photographers and amateur shutterbugs alike. She received frequent requests to speak at women’s social clubs, churches and community gatherings. Her talks routinely packed local auditoriums in cities all over the country.
A new type of opportunity arrived via telegram in 1917 from Los Angeles, California. Adolph Zukor, president of Paramount Pictures and film director Marshall “Mickey” Neilan offered to purchase film rights to Stratton-Porter’s hugely popular novel Freckles. The notion that Gene would have one of her books turned into a silent film was intriguing. Of even greater interest to her, Paramount offered to hire as screenwriter the well-known playwright Marion Fairfax, a fellow female writer and creative director.
Gene was disappointed, however, in the final production of Freckles on the big screen. She disapproved of the filmmakers’ editing choices, which she felt veered too far astray from her original plot. So, when other film companies continued to seek permission to make movies from her novels, she chose to do what she had always done with her creative endeavors. She took complete control and created her own film production company. In early 1924, she formed Gene Stratton-Porter Productions with designs to turn her best-selling novels into movies.
Gene would serve as the CEO and creative director of the company, with daughter Jeannette as president and supervising screenwriter. She hired James Leo Meehan as principal director. Together they began to turn Gene Stratton-Porter’s beloved works, such as Michael O’Halloran, A Girl of the Limberlost, and The Keeper of the Bees, into films produced in California and distributed across the country.
As we continue production of the new WTIU/PBS documentary Gene Stratton-Porter: Music of the Wild, the production team recently traveled to California, where Stratton-Porter founded one of the first female-owned film production companies. We captured footage at Gene’s first California home built in the town of Avalon on Catalina Island. Even as she continued to own two homes in Indiana – at Limberlost Cabin in Geneva and Wildflower Woods in Rome City – she was living in Avalon and was overseeing construction of a lavish, five-bedroom, four-bath estate in an area of Los Angeles that would become one of the wealthiest and most prominent neighborhoods of Bel-Air. The hillside home was built on three acres of property that included expansive gardens, waterfalls and a nature sanctuary.
While in Los Angeles, we interviewed Rosanne Welch, PhD., from Cal State Polytechnic University, a historian and screenwriter who specializes in women’s roles in the early history of Hollywood. And we also captured stunning footage of the flora and fauna surrounding the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, where the remains of an old Spanish mission are surrounded by exotic, brightly colored gardens. The land is also home to the famed swallows that annually migrate from Argentina to southern California each spring.
Gene often visited San Juan Capistrano to draw inspiration for her writings. She was so moved by one experience at the Mission that she went home and wrote for four days straight with no sleep and little food. Her publisher Frank N. Doubleday described these fits of euphoric rapture as “Gene’s fevers.” The result of this particular “fever” was Jesus of the Emerald, a long-form narrative poem, published in 1923 after Gene’s springtime visit to the Mission.
We are also currently working to help restore and digitize a copy of a 1934 Monogram Pictures production of A Girl of the Limberlost. This film was produced after Gene Stratton-Porter died in 1924. However, Gene’s daughter Jeannette served as creative consultant on the project. Portions of the film, based on one of Stratton-Porter’s most popular novels, will be featured in the new documentary film.
It takes support from many individual donors, as well as corporations and foundations, to help us travel the country to uncover these important stories of Indiana’s history and reveal how these Hoosier biographies have such a remarkable influence throughout the country and world. Premiering in November 2026, Gene Stratton-Porter: Music of the Wild showcases the very best of Indiana and celebrates the support of viewers like you to help preserve and share these documentaries with PBS viewers nationwide.
Thank you for your continued support of our local productions at WTIU and for helping us share these incredible and inspiring stories with viewers all over the country.
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