Gene Stratton-Porter and the end of Limberlost Swamp

Smithsonian's Collections Search Center turns up intriguing results for Gene Stratton-Porter– images from the Art Inventories Catalog of Smithsonian's American Art Museum, a natural history text, and a book on travel through the "Hoosier state" from Smithsonian Libraries.  These only hint at her fascinating life.  I first learned about Stratton-Porter when Smithsonian Libraries digitized one of her natural history texts, contributed to Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL).  Looking at her books on BHL, one finds texts that describe birds, bugs, and her birthplace—the state of Indiana.

Gene Stratton-Porter (1863-1924) expressed a deep connection with her home state in the form of nature photography and illustration, writing, and environmental activism.  In each of these endeavors, she studied, documented, referenced, or advocated for the places in Indiana she knew personally.

Title page of Stratton-Porter’s best known novel, A Girl of the Limberlost. Source: Wikipedia.

She is best known for her twelve novels, which gained her national and international fame during her lifetime. At her peak of popularity in the 1910’s, Stratton-Porter had an estimated 50 million readers.  One of her best-known novels, A Girl of the Limberlost, takes place in Limberlost swamp, located near her home “Limberlost Cabin” in Geneva, Indiana.  Limberlost swamp was also where she spent most of her time and effort documenting natural history.

Stratton-Porter’s accomplishments are impressive, especially when one remembers she was born in the midst of the American Civil War.  There is an appealing boldness to how she lived her life.  In a time when women did not consider home and career, she dared to not only pursue writing, but to also believe she could balance it with her home life. Her daughter later quoted her mother’s thoughts on career, family, and the tension that resulted. 

Then I took a bold step, the first in my self-emancipation. Money was beginning to come in, and I had some in my purse of my very own that I had earned when no one knew I was working. I argued that if I kept my family so comfortable that they missed nothing from my usual routine, I had a right to do what I could toward furthering my personal ambitions . . . until I could earn money enough to hire capable people to take my place. 

It speaks not only to her belief that there could be balance in home and work, but to her confidence in her capacity to earn substantial income from a career she learned on her own.

She pursued her natural history fieldwork with the same boldness.  In Tales You Won’t Believe, Stratton-Porter described how she collected and transported specimens in her car: 

There were long boxes for each of the running boards and frequently I threw coffee sacking over the engine hood and loaded it with swamp mosses and bulbous plants, with pitcher plant and rosemary, as high as I could stack it and allow space for the driver to see over. 

When one of her books was adapted into a movie and she disliked the resulting film, Stratton-Parker started her own movie company and became one of the first women movie producers in Hollywood. She wrote to a correspondent, “every dollar of money that went into this picture I earned myself, most of it in the fields and woods and in the swamps.”

Page 11, Moths of the Limberlost, with water color and photographic illustrations from life. Source Biodiversity Heritage Library (Smithsonian Libraries contribution)

When reading about her life, I was particularly interested in a reference to her conservation work for Limberlost swamp.  Too many Hollywood endings made me assume that her writing and natural history documentation might have saved it from development.

Reading more in-depth, I learned this was not the case. In 1910, the swamp that inspired her natural history study and popular writing was drained and developed for agricultural use. After the loss of Limberlost swamp, Stratton-Baker became active in the conservation movement. She fought for the Indiana state government to repeal legislation that would drain wetland in additional counties. The law was repealed; unfortunately, the swamps were still eventually drained. Indiana’s drive to drain wetlands went well beyond Limberlost and neighboring counties; from the time of the state was settled by pioneers, Indiana lost an estimated 4.85 million acres of wetland. According to Indiana in Transition (1968) by 1919, “Indiana had the largest percentage of farms under drainage in the nation.” Stratton-Porter bought another property in 1912, selling the home in Geneva in 1923. 

There is a poignancy to Gene Stratton-Porter’s life, when one considers how her strong connection to Indiana influenced her writing and its popularity. Stratton-Porter moved from Geneva to Sylvan Lake in Indiana, partly because of the property’s resemblance to Limberlost swamp. By 1919, her popularity grew significantly, and the family started having issues with fans trespassing. The increasing lack of privacy was one of the reasons Stratton-Parker moved from Indiana to California in 1919.

Poster from a 1938 movie adaptation of “A Girl of Limberlost”. The book was also adapted in 1924, 1934, 1945, and 1990. Source: Wikipedia

Despite lacking the happy conclusion I envisioned for Limberlost swamp, her natural history legacy endures. Stratton-Porter’s natural history writing documents the lost Indiana wetland of Limberlost, now available on Biodiversity Heritage Library.  Stratton-Porter’s writing eventually inspired the state of Indiana to turn her two homes into state historic sites that support environmental education -- Limberlost Cabin and Cabin at Wildflower Woods.

Lesley Parilla, Cataloging and Bibliographic Access Librarian
Smithsonian Libraries

To learn more about Gene Stratton-Porter:

• “Gene Stratton-Porter” in The Indiana Historian (1996) http://www.in.gov/history/files/genestrattonporter.pdf 
• The Lady of the Limberlost: The Life and Letters of Gene Stratton-Porter: biography by her daughter Jeannette (Porter) Meehan: https://archive.org/details/lifelettersofgen00meeh
• Gene Stratton-Porter: A Little Story of the Life and Work and Ideals of “the Bird Woman”: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/stratton/gene/gene.html
• Biodiversity Heritage Library: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/search?searchTerm=stratton-porter#/titles
• Gene Stratton-Porter Society: http://www.genestratton-porter.com/about-gene
• Indiana Historical Society: https://indianahistory.org/education/educator-resources/famous-hoosiers/gene-stratton-porter/
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Stratton-Porter
• Internet Archive:  https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%28stratton-porter%2C%20gene%29&and[]=creator%3A%22stratton-porter%2C+gene%2C+1863-1924%22 

Opening the Archives: New Finding Aid Available at the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art

Celebrating Artist Betty LaDuke, Multicultural Women’s Art Advocate

In most [of my] paintings, African women are portrayed between myth and reality. They are mothers bringing forth, sustaining, and nurturing all life forms. They are cultural guardians, healers, and mythical goddesses. These strong and resilient role models are my praise songs to Africa.”

-Betty LaDuke, Artist Statement from Celebrating Africa – Celebrating Life Exhibit

There is no better time to share Betty LaDuke’s photographs, artwork and teachings than during Women’s History Month. An artist, photographer, writer, professor and multicultural women’s arts advocate, Betty LaDuke has worked for over thirty years to promote women and international artists.

Kunama Mother Carrying Child on Back,
Barentu Region, Eritrea, circa 1994
EEPA 2007-003-250

Born in the Bronx to Russian and Polish immigrants in 1933, LaDuke attended California State University in Los Angeles and the Otis College of Art and Design. After three years of teaching junior high art in East Los Angeles, LaDuke moved to Ashland, Oregon in 1964 to accept a position in the art department at Southern Oregon University, where she taught for over 30 years. The University’s second woman art teacher (and for eighteen years the only woman in the Art Department), she strove to increase awareness of international women artists and humanitarian concerns, teaching courses including “Women and Art” and “Art in the Third World”. 

"NAKFA Survivors"
[Taken during the Border War in an Internally Displaced Persons Camp],
Nakfa, Eritrea, 2001
EEPA 2007-003-2508

In addition to teaching, LaDuke published numerous books on women’s art, including Compañeros, Women, Art, and Social Change in Latin America (1985) and Africa: Women’s Art, Women’s Lives (1991), Africa through the Eyes of Women Artists (1991), and Women Against Hunger: A Sketchbook Journey (1997).  LaDuke herself has been the subject of a book by Gloria Feman Orenstein, entitled Multi-Cultural Celebrations: The Paintings of Betty LaDuke 1972-1992 (1993).

But her stunning artwork, full of uncompromising representations of women's struggles and resilience, is by far the most impactful source of advocacy. Beginning in 1972, she began to undertake annual research journeys to Asia, Latin America, Oceania and Africa, photographing and sketching the women and children in those regions, finding inspiration for the paintings and prints that would make up her circulating exhibits. Engaging with these themes, LaDuke produced traveling exhibits, notably Landscape: A Feminine Mythical View and Africa Through the Eyes of Women.

"Eritrea-Ethiopia: Where Have all the Father's Gone?" Print by Betty LaDuke
EEPA 2007-003-2649

Upon her retirement from teaching in 1996, LaDuke began to travel to project sites of Heifer International, a humanitarian organization concerned with world hunger and environmental sustainability. These experiences inspired a new phase of her work, including a return to mural painting. Today, LaDuke and her husband live in the home they built in Ashland over forty years ago.

Basket Makers, Senafe, Eritrea, 1998
EEPA 2007-003-2493

LaDuke’s influence is still certainly seen in her daughter’s renowned activism and political influence: A two-time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party (1996 and 2000), Winona LaDuke is internationally recognized for her work on issues of sustainable development, renewable energy, environmental justice and food systems, particularly for indigenous communities. Founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation-based non-profit organizations in the country, Winona, like her mother, has dedicated her life to advocating for human right's issues. Winner of such prestigious honors and awards as the Reebok Human Rights Award (1988), the Thomas Merton Award (1996), Ms. Woman of the Year (with the Indigo Girls) (1997) and named to Time magazines' America's fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age list, Winona continues her incredible record of activism, now working towards a peaceful resolution to the North Dakota pipeline conflict.

Betty LaDuke and Children, Eritrea, circa 1998
EEPA 2007-003-2719

For more information about Betty LaDuke, see her website.

Betty LaDuke Collection 

EEPA 2007-003

Consisting of over three thousand color photographs and negatives, 24 art prints, posters, a copy of a sketchbook, biographical materials, exhibition files, publications, and two DVDs, LaDuke's collection provides insight into her travels and work between 1981-2009. Photographing in Ethiopia and Eritrea, particularly in Senafe, Nakfa and Massawa, the images largely depict Kunama and Saho peoples, especially women and children, but also document architecture, agricultural work, beadwork, weaving, village scenes, artists, artists at work, artworks, markets, celebrations, scenic views, animals, churches and mosques. Some of LaDuke's most potent images portray embattled Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps during the Border War, especially those in Nakfa and Gelebe (see photo above).

For more information on the Betty LaDuke Collection, please see our finding aid to learn more about the photographs, art prints, A/V materials, exhibition files, printed material, and biographical records that comprise the collection.

To request an image, please see our website for the photo request form. To make an appointment at the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, please email elisofonarchives@si.edu. Our research hours are Monday through Thursday, 10 AM to 4 PM.

Eden Orelove, Photo Archivist

Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art