Gene Stratton Porter
BEST-SELLER
Prepared by the staff of the
Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County
April, 1953
Foreword
Although Gene Stratton Porter resided in this city only a few weeks in 1913, her life was closely associated with the Fort Wayne area. Born in rural Wabash County and educated in Wabash, the noted Hoosier author established residence successively in Geneva, Decatur, and Rome City. She was intimately connected with Coldwater, Michigan, and Winchester, Indiana; and her literary and social activities frequently brought her to the Summit City, where she had close relatives, friends, and admirers. The G. R. & I. Railroad linked together many of the communities where she lived her formative years and was the chief mode of transportation in her youth.
Gene Stratton Porter was neither a classicist, nor a naturalist, nor yet a realist in literature. Some critics have denominated her writings “opiates for the masses”; others characterized them as being of “molasses sweetness”; still others found them too imaginary. Certainly a best-seller in her day, she was a romanticist in the best Hoosier tradition of George Barr McCutcheon, Meredith Nicholson, and David Graham Phillips—those other best-sellers of that golden day of Indiana authors. President William Lowe Bryan of Indiana University once included her in a list of fourteen best-selling Indiana authors. In the larger national field of literature, her place is with those other contemporary best-sellers, Harold Bell Wright and Harold McGrath.
Gene Stratton Porter won wide popularity and a special place in the hearts of her readers; no contemporary author was better loved or acclaimed by the reading public. Fifty million readers of her own day enshrined her in their affections; countless thousands of later generations still read her volumes avidly and experience the same pleasant and refreshing glow as did their grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts in the first quarter of this century. Although the professional literary critics found no especial merit in her works, Mrs. Porter was amply rewarded, both by royalties from the sale of her books and the acclaim of a large segment of the reading public who found inspiration and recreation in her words. Indeed, the financial returns from her works were seldom surpassed in her day by other contemporary authors.
To the citizens of Fort Wayne and northeastern Indiana, the name of Gene Stratton Porter is as familiar as the names and deeds of local heroes and leaders of the present and distant past. The boards and the staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County are pleased to present this brief resume of the life and work of the Hoosier author in response to frequent inquiries about her.
It is hoped that this publication will stimulate reminiscences among Mrs. Porter’s friends and acquaintances and reacquaint her large retinue of readers, both young and old, with their beloved author.
Geneva Stratton, later better known as Gene Stratton Porter, the youngest of twelve children, was born on Hopewell Farm about ten miles from Wabash, Indiana, August 17, 1863. Her father, Mark Stratton, was a farmer and ordained minister and had lived in Wabash County since about 1834. Mr. Stratton was a high-principled man with unusual mental powers and some education. Mrs. Stratton also possessed abilities of high quality.
To the end of her life, Mrs. Porter gave her father credit for her literary success. He devoted much time to instructing her by precept and by example. He found the time to give her and his other children that which they lacked in formal education. One of his contributions was the oft-enforced admonition to finish a task once it was started. He taught her economies which she practiced all of her life; many years later she remarked that her instruction in thrift at home as a child prevented her use of the telegraph later when she could well have afforded it.