A visit to GWTW Museum

Perhaps you have heard about Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of all time "Gone With the Wind", or at least seen the equally famous motion picture bearing the same title (with Vivien Leigh as Scarlet and Clark Gable as Rhett). Personally, I have certainly enjoyed the book, in addition to having watched the movie many times. While in Atlanta, GA last week, I took the opportunity to visit Marietta Gone with the wind museum, which was surely a memorable experience.    

Based on the American civil war during the 1860s, the book "Gone With the Wind" tells many vivid stories of what happens to people's live and ideas during a upheaval. With survival being the enduring theme throughout, the author portrays the qualities that enable some people to come through catastrophes, without which the other apparently just as able, strong and brave people will simply go under.

In a way, the book reflects the author's own struggle against life's adversaries. Being born in Atlanta to a family with ancestry not unlike the O’Hara’s, Margaret Mitchell started her working life as a reporter/writer for The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine when she was 22. Having an intense interest in arts and literature, she horned in her writing skills on the job. Unfortunately at 26, she suffered from wrist pains and injuries that forced her to quit the job.

While convalescing at home, Margaret Mitchell read all novels that could be borrowed from local libraries. Without further access to books, she began to write a novel of her own "Gone With the Wind", which was completed when she was 29. Being unsure if any publishers would be interested in her book, she kept it largely to herself and two other people for a few years. When at 35, she finally showed the book to a book publisher, which promptly bought the book right.

Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer price at 37, and the movie with the identical title debuted when she was 39. One day when walking in Peachtree Street in Atlanta, she was struck by a speeding taxi, and died five days later at the age of 49. "Gone With the Wind" was her only book.