Margaret Mitchell and Gone with the Wind

Before she was able to write, Margaret Mitchell was creating stories. As a child she would not know of the blockbuster status of the epic she would eventually write. Begun as a source of amusement, Gone With The Wind was not intentionally written for publication. When it was published, it became an overnight success, selling a million copies in six months. It is the second highest best seller next to the Bible.

On November 8, 1900 Eugene and Isabel Mitchell welcomed their daughter Margaret into the world. Both parents had deep Irish Catholic roots and valued education. Eugene was a lawyer and president of the Atlanta Historical Society. Isabel, known primarily as Maybelle, was a staunch women's suffragist. Margaret was instilled the value of education from early on. Her mother encouraged reading and offered to pay Margaret for every Shakespeare play she read. By the time she was eleven, Margaret had read them all. Other favorite authors included Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott.

Margaret graduated from Washington Seminary, an elite finishing school for girls. She founded their drama club and edited the yearbook, Facts and Fancies. It published two of her stories. Her education at Smith College was cut short by her mother's death during the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918.

After her mother's death, Margaret returned to Atlanta to become the new mistress of the house and prepared for the debutante season. At one ball she caused a scandal by performing a provocative dance that was popular in French clubs in those days. She often clashed with other debutantes, as she had become as outspoken as her mother regarding charitable causes.

In 1922 she began working as a journalist for the Atlanta Journal. She was paid twenty-five dollars for her weekly columns which appeared in the Sunday edition of the paper. Peggy, as she was known then, was one of the first female reporters in the South's leading papers. She interviewed celebrities like Rudolph Valentino and murderer Henry Thaw. She also wrote profiles of Civil War generals. Sixty-four of her considered best columns were compiled for Margaret Mitchell, Reporter which was released in 2000.

Also in 1922 Margaret married Red Upshaw. However, the marriage ended shortly thereafter, when she discovered her husband was a bootlegger. In 1925 she married the best man from her first wedding, John Marsh. It is rumored that Upshaw and Marsh courted her at the same time. She married Upshaw because he had been the first to propose to her. Red may have been the inspiration for Rhett Butler. Legend says the last thing he said to her was "My dear, I don't give a damn."

Later Margaret had to resign from the newspaper when she broke her ankle. While she recuperated, her husband Marsh brought her stacks of books from the public library. One evening her exasperated husband told her the library was out of books. If she wanted to read another, she would have to write one of her own. When asked what she should write about, he responded, "Write what you know." Because she had spent most of her childhood around history buffs and Civil War veterans, writing an epic set in the Civil War came naturally.

She typed Tomorrow Is Another Day on a Remington typewriter. She kept her project a secret from most of her friends. Marsh was her only reader at that time. When they had visitors, she hid the growing manuscript under towels, in cupboards and under the bed. Once when they had company, she threw a rug over her stacks of pages. When the manuscript was stacked, it stood taller than Margaret's 4' 9" frame. By 1929 she had almost finished the novel, except for the first chapter. By then she had lost interest in the project. The manuscript remained in storage through several moves.

In 1935 Harold Latham from MacMillan Publishing arrived in Atlanta, scouting for new work. He approached Margaret about her work-in-progress, but she denied its existence. When a friend insulted her by saying she did not have what it takes to be a writer, she dug out her manuscript and packed it in a suitcase to tote to Latham. As Latham left his hotel, Margaret handed him her suitcase and begged him to take her manuscript with him before she could change her mind. By the time she had returned home she regretted her decision. Immediately she telegrammed him to return it. It was too late. He had read most of it on the train ride and was enamored with the sweeping epic. MacMillan sent her an advance so she could finish the novel and write a first chapter. After six months of rewrites, including changing the protagonist's name from Pansy to Scarlett, Gone With the Wind was released in 1936. December 15, 1939 David O. Selznick released the film starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

Margaret Mitchell never wrote another novel. She once told an interviewer that her time was not her own since Gone With the Wind had been published. She was in great demand for public appearances and speaking engagements. She also responded personally to every fan letter. Upon her death at her bequest, the original manuscript and other writings were destroyed. Among those a gothic ghost story she had written prior to Gone With the Wind was discovered.

In 1949 on her way to the Peachtree Art Theatre with her husband, she was struck by a speeding car. She never regained consciousness and died five days later. She was buried in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. The Margaret Mitchell House where she wrote Gone With the Wind was preserved in Midtown Atlanta. A few miles away in Marietta, Georgia stands the Gone With the Wind museum called "Scarlett on the Square." It displays costumes and other items from the film. In 2000 she was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

Sources

Bond, Jenny and Sheedy, Chris. Who the Hell is Pansy O'Hara? The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the World's Best-Loved Books. New York: Penguin Books 2008.

Margaret Mitchell House http://www.margaretmitchellhouse.com