To say that Hoosier author and environmentalist Gene Stratton-Porter was a prolific writer is an understatement. The author published a dozen best-selling novels, as well as several nonfiction nature studies, and books of poetry and children’s literature. But beyond all these works, she also wrote – frequently – in various national nature magazines, as well as many popular periodicals of the time. It is in many of these magazine columns where Gene strongly preaches to her readers the importance of wildlife conservation. She often read the Transcendentalists like Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau and Margaret Fuller. She was also moved by the efforts of environmentalists like John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt.
During her heyday in the early 1920s, there were several scholars and literary critics who compared Gene Stratton-Porter’s powerful environmental messages to those of the former American President. Author and editor Grant Overton noted, “Each (Gene Stratton-Porter and Theodore Roosevelt) has swayed the millions. Each, beyond all possible question, has influenced human lives.” And the celebrated scholar and critic William Lyon Phelps stated, “I have no doubt that she has led millions of boys and girls into the study of natural objects…She is full of energy as Roosevelt, and as hearty an American. She is a public institution, like Yellowstone National Park.”
We will soon be featuring these various perspectives of Gene’s “scripture of nature” with a national PBS audience in the new WTIU documentary production: Gene Stratton-Porter: Music of the Wild, premiering in November 2026. In the show, we will share many of Stratton-Porter’s first-person observations in nature, along with additional views from her daughter Jeannette, and many other early environmental pioneers. Even in her works of fiction, the environment is as much a character as the humans she presents in her books. Her theory was that if a reader could understand and sympathize with various flora and fauna, then more and more people would come to closely identify with that “character” and thus be more compelled to observe it and preserve it.
In the documentary, we, of course, will be highlighting many of the colors and textures of the Limberlost Nature Preserve in the northeastern edge of the state, as well as the gardens of her second home in Rome City, Indiana. We will also be taking viewers to various state and national parks and other sacred spaces all over the U.S. Some of the areas in which Gene’s story is tied include the Great Elk Refuge near the Teton Mountain Range in Wyoming, Muir Woods and San Juan Capistrano in California, the Upper Mississippi River Basin in Minnesota, and even a trip to the Tongue Mountain range in New York’s Adirondacks, where an entire grove of white pine trees was dedicated to Gene Stratton-Porter for her environmental work.
The way that we can pay to document such important historical landscapes is through member support from viewers just like you. In PBS we like to say that “You’re the Public in Public Broadcasting.” Foundation support, corporate support and individual donors help us meet and exceed production goals. We also remain steadfastly committed to our audience and present more important documentaries that help celebrate Indiana’s rich history and share that story with a national PBS audience.
We will continue to share behind-the-scenes stories from the filmmaking process each month before the premiere of the film this November.
Cheers,
Todd
Next Month: Recording the soundtrack to “Music of the Wild.”
