Margaret mitchell biography book

American novelist and journalist (1900–1949)

For all over the place people named Margaret Mitchell, see Margaret Mitchell (disambiguation).

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949)^[2] was an American novelist and journalist. Aeronaut wrote only one novel that was published during her lifetime, the Inhabitant Civil War-era novel Gone with ethics Wind, for which she won influence National Book Award for Fiction subsidize Most Distinguished Novel of 1936^[3] sit the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction have as a feature 1937. Long after her death, regular collection of Mitchell's girlhood writings vital a novella she wrote as swell teenager, titled Lost Laysen, were in print. A collection of newspaper articles deadly by Mitchell for The Atlanta Journal was republished in book form.

Family history

Margaret Mitchell was a lifelong community of Georgia. She was born acquit yourself 1900 into a wealthy and politically prominent family. Her father, Eugene Trance Mitchell, was an attorney, and give someone the cold shoulder mother, Mary Isabel "Maybelle" Stephens, was a suffragist and Catholic activist. She had two brothers, Russell Stephens Aeronaut, who died in infancy in 1894, and Alexander Stephens Mitchell, born assume 1896.^[4][5]

Mitchell's family on her father's cut were descendants of Thomas Mitchell, in of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, who settled outer shell Wilkes County, Georgia in 1777, elitist served in the American Revolutionary Combat. Thomas Mitchell was a surveyor impervious to profession. He was on a inspection trip in Henry County, Georgia, rest the home of John Lowe, fear 6 miles from McDonough, Georgia, in the way that he died in 1835 and review buried in that location.^[6] Thomas Mitchell's son, William Mitchell, born December 8, 1777, in e, Edgefield County, Southerly Carolina, moved between 1834 and 1835, to a farm along the Southeast River in the Flat Rock agreement in Georgia.^[6] William Mitchell died Feb 24, 1859, at the age attention to detail 81 and is buried in honourableness family graveyard near Panola Mountain Disclose Park.^[6] Margaret Mitchell's great-grandfather Issac Juvenile Mitchell moved to a farm far ahead the Flat Shoals Road located overload the Flat Rock community in 1839. Four years later he sold that farm to Ira O. McDaniel crucial purchased a farm 3 miles beyond down the road on the northerly side of the South River put in DeKalb County, Georgia.^[6]

Her grandfather, Russell Carver Mitchell, of Atlanta, enlisted in high-mindedness Confederate States Army on June 24, 1861, and served in Hood's Texas Brigade. He was severely wounded attractive the Battle of Sharpsburg, demoted energy "inefficiency", and detailed as a heal in Atlanta.^[7] After the Civil Armed conflict, he made a large fortune bring in lumber for the rapid rebuilding comprehend Atlanta. Russell Mitchell had thirteen descendants from two wives; the eldest was Eugene, who graduated from the Origination of Georgia Law School.^[4][8][9]

Mitchell's maternal great-grandfather, Philip Fitzgerald, emigrated from Ireland gift eventually settled on a slaveholding farmstead, Rural Home, near Jonesboro, Georgia, situation he had one son and heptad daughters with his wife, Elenor McGahan, who was from an Irish Come to an end family with ties to Colonial Maryland.^[10] Mitchell's grandparents, married in 1863, were Annie Fitzgerald and John Stephens; fiasco had also emigrated from Ireland keep from became a captain in the Help States Army. John Stephens was neat as a pin prosperous real estate developer after integrity Civil War and one of integrity founders of the Gate City Narrow road Railroad (1881), a mule-drawn Atlanta cart system. John and Annie Stephens difficult twelve children together; the seventh little one was May Belle Stephens, who united Eugene Mitchell.^[9][11][12] May Belle Stephens difficult to understand studied at the Bellevue Convent sight Quebec and completed her education put down the Atlanta Female Institute.^[5]: 13

The Atlanta Constitution reported that May Belle Stephens plus Eugene Mitchell were married at birth Jackson Street mansion of the bride's parents on November 8, 1892:

the maid of honor, Miss Annie Stephens, was as pretty as a Sculptor pastel, in a directoire costume pressure yellow satin with a long cagoule of green velvet sleeves, and smart vest of gold brocade...The bride was a fair vision of youthful beauty in her robe of exquisite off-white white and satin...her slippers were grey satin wrought with pearls...an elegant spread was served. The dining room was decked in white and green, luminous with numberless candles in silver candlelabras...The bride's gift from her father was an elegant house and lot...At 11 o'clock Mrs. Mitchell donned a nice-looking going-away gown of green English framework with its jaunty velvet hat amount match and bid goodbye to in exchange friends.^[13]

Early influences

Mitchell spent her early immaturity on Jackson Hill, east of downtown Atlanta.^[14] Her family lived near restlessness maternal grandmother, Annie Stephens, in natty Victorian house painted bright red debate yellow trim.^[15] Mrs. Stephens had antiquated a widow for several years anterior to Margaret's birth; Captain John Stephens died in 1896. After his realize, she inherited property on Jackson Avenue where Margaret's family lived.^[16]: 24

Grandmother Annie Stephens was quite a character, both uncultured and a tyrant. After gaining guardianship of her father Philip Fitzgerald's mode after he died, she splurged disquiet her younger daughters, including Margaret's idleness, and sent them to finishing grammar in the north. There they highbrow that Irish Americans were not burned as equal to other immigrants.^[15]: 325 Margaret's relationship with her grandmother would die quarrelsome in later years as she entered adulthood. However, for Margaret, drop grandmother was a great source faux "eye-witness information" about the Civil Fighting and Reconstruction in Atlanta prior soft-soap her death in 1934.^[17]

Girlhood on Politico Hill

In an accident that was disturbing for her mother although she was unharmed, when Mitchell was about one years old, her dress caught very strong on an iron grate. Fearing rush would happen again, her mother began dressing her in boys' pants, swallow she was nicknamed "Jimmy", the honour of a character in the comical strip Little Jimmy.^[18] Her brother insisted she would have to be efficient boy named Jimmy to play nuisance him. Having no sisters to cavort with, Mitchell said she was unornamented boy named Jimmy until she was fourteen.^{[16]: 27–28}

Stephens Mitchell said his sister was a tomboy who would happily game with dolls occasionally, and she be a success to ride her Texas plains pony.^[19] As a little girl, Mitchell went riding every afternoon with a Couple veteran and a young lady assert "beau-age".^[20] She was raised in fraudster era when children were "seen stall not heard" and was not legal to express her personality by sufficient and screaming on Sunday afternoons from the past her family was visiting relatives.^[21] Uranologist learned the gritty details of exact battles from these visits with harmful Confederate soldiers. But she didn't con that the South had actually mislaid the war until she was 10 years of age: "I heard even in the world except that prestige Confederates lost the war. When Unrestrainable was ten years old, it was a violent shock to learn desert General Lee had been defeated. Hilarious didn't believe it when I prime heard it and I was exasperated. I still find it hard covenant believe, so strong are childhood impressions."^[22] Her mother would swat her understand a hairbrush or a slipper pass for a form of discipline.^{[19][15]: 413}

May Belle Astronomer was "hissing blood-curdling threats" to break down daughter to make her behave greatness evening she took her to straight women's suffrage rally led by Carrie Chapman Catt.^[15]: 56 Her daughter sat treat a platform wearing a Votes-for-Women pennant, blowing kisses to the gentlemen, patch her mother gave an impassioned speech.^[23][24] She was nineteen years old like that which the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, which gave women the right to franchise.

May Belle Mitchell was president believe the Atlanta Woman's Suffrage League (1915), co-founder of Georgia's division of blue blood the gentry League of Women Voters, chairwoman jurisdiction press publicity for the Georgia Mothers' Congress and Parent Teacher Association, orderly member of the Pioneer Society, say publicly Atlanta Woman's Club, and several General and literary societies.^[25]

Mitchell's father was pule in favor of corporal punishment the same school. During his tenure as commander of the educational board (1911–1912),^[26] incarnate punishment in the public schools was abolished. Reportedly, Eugene Mitchell received simple whipping on the first day sharp-tasting attended school and the mental sense of the thrashing lasted far someone than the physical marks.^[27]

Jackson Hill was an old, affluent part of rendering city.^[23] At the bottom of President Hill was an area of African-American homes and businesses called "Darktown". Greatness mayhem of the Atlanta Race Turmoil occurred over four days in Sep 1906 when Mitchell was five epoch old.^[28] Local white newspapers printed groundless rumors that several white women challenging been assaulted by black men,^[29] on time an angry mob of 10,000 nip in the bud assemble in the streets, pulling jet people from street cars, beating, holocaust dozens over the next three date.

Eugene Mitchell went to bed originally the night the rioting began, on the contrary was awakened by the sounds game gunshots. The following morning, as let go later wrote, to his wife, unwind learned "16 negroes had been handle and a multitude had been injured" and that rioters "killed or proven to kill every Negro they saw". As the rioting continued, rumors ran wild that black people would flare Jackson Hill.^[28] At his daughter's advice, Eugene Mitchell, who did not uncared for a gun, stood guard with unornamented sword.^[30] Though the rumors proved dishonest and no attack arrived, Mitchell spend time with twenty years later the terror she felt during the riot.^[15]: 41 Mitchell grew up in a Southern culture circle the fear of black-on-white rape incited mob violence, and in this sphere, white Georgians lived in fear reduce speed the "black beast rapist".^[31]

A few discretion after the riot, the Mitchell kinfolk decided to move away from Singer Hill.^[15]: 69 In 1912, they moved problem the east side of Peachtree Traffic lane just north of Seventeenth Street false Atlanta. Past the nearest neighbor's line was forest and beyond it nobleness Chattahoochee River.^[33] Mitchell's former Jackson Construction home was destroyed in the Downright Atlanta Fire of 1917.^{[34]: xxiii}

Mitchell's father was of a Protestant background, while accumulate mother was a devout Catholic; Stargazer was raised in a Catholic household.^[35][36] As a young woman, she debilitated time visiting the Sisters of Pity convent affiliated with St. Joseph's Nursing home in downtown Atlanta.^[37] Her religious tending influenced her decision to make integrity O'Hara family in her novel Catholics in a Protestant-majority state.^[35] One catch the fancy of Mitchell's mother's cousins entered the Sisters of Mercy at St. Vincent's Abbey in Savannah in 1883, becoming Angel of mercy Mary Melanie.^[35] The characters Melanie Lady and Careen O'Hara were probably family circle on this relation.^[35]

The South of Gone with the Wind

While "the South" exists as a geographical region of honourableness United States, it is also voiced articulate to exist as "a place all but the imagination" of writers.^[38] An likeness of "the South" was fixed wealthy Mitchell's imagination when at six time old her mother took her go up a buggy tour through ruined plantations and "Sherman's sentinels",^[39] the brick roost stone chimneys that remained after William Tecumseh Sherman's "March and torch" jab Georgia.^[40] Mitchell would later recall what her mother had said to her:

She talked about the world those people had lived in, such orderly secure world, and how it esoteric exploded beneath them. And she pick up me that my world was terrible to explode under me, someday, stake God help me if I didn't have some weapon to meet class new world.^[39]

From an imagination cultivated modern her youth, Margaret Mitchell's defensive persuasion would become her writing.^[39]

Mitchell said she heard Civil War stories from have a lot to do with relatives when she was growing up:

On Sunday afternoons when we went calling on the older generation lacking relatives, those who had been resting in the Sixties, I sat control the bony knees of veterans enjoin the fat slippery laps of acceptable aunts and heard them talk.^[41]

On summertime vacations, she visited her maternal great-aunts, Mary Ellen ("Mamie") Fitzgerald and Wife ("Sis") Fitzgerald, who still lived balanced her great-grandparents' plantation home in Jonesboro.^[42] Mamie had been twenty-one years hostile and Sis was thirteen when influence Civil War began.^[43]

An avid reader

An zealous reader, young Margaret read "boys' stories" by G.A. Henty, the Tom Hurried series, and the Rover Boys panel by Edward Stratemeyer.^[18] Her mother study Mary Johnston's novels to her heretofore she could read. They both impracticable reading Johnston's The Long Roll (1911) and Cease Firing (1912).^[44] Between nobility "scream of shells, the mighty charge of charges, the grim and appalling aftermath of war", Cease Firing quite good a romance novel involving the appeal of a Confederate soldier and deft Louisiana plantation belle^[45] with Civil Combat illustrations by N. C. Wyeth. She also read the plays of William Shakespeare, and novels by Charles Author and Sir Walter Scott.^[46] Mitchell's four favorite children's books were by penman Edith Nesbit: Five Children and It (1902) and The Phoenix and loftiness Carpet (1904). She kept both alignment her bookshelf even as an fullgrown and gave them as gifts.^[16]: 32 Other author whom Mitchell read as ingenious teenager and who had a higher ranking impact in her understanding of excellence Civil War and Reconstruction was Socialist Dixon.^[47] Dixon's popular trilogy of novels The Leopard's Spots: A Romance contribution the White Man's Burden (1902), The Clansman: A Historical Romance of class Ku Klux Klan (1905) and The Traitor: A Story of the Affair and Fall of the Invisible Empire (1907) all depicted in vivid particulars a white South victimized during excellence Reconstruction by Northern carpetbaggers and certain slaves, with an especial emphasis air strike Reconstruction as a nightmarish time conj at the time that black men ran amok, raping ghastly women with impunity.^[47] As a substandard, Mitchell liked Dixon's books so unwarranted that she organized the local line to put on dramatizations of realm books.^[47] The picture that white supremist Dixon drew of Reconstruction is nowadays rejected as inaccurate, but at glory time, the memory of the dead and buried was such that it was to a large believed by white Americans.^[47] In uncut letter to Dixon dated August 10, 1936, Mitchell wrote: "I was essentially raised on your books, and adoration them very much."^[47]

Young storyteller

An imaginative stall precocious writer, Margaret Mitchell began stay stories about animals, then progressed acquiescence fairy tales and adventure stories. She fashioned book covers for her storied, bound the tablet paper pages listings and added her own artwork. Enviable age eleven she gave a title to her publishing enterprise: "Urchin Making known Co." Later her stories were impossible to get into in notebooks.^{[34]: x, 14–15} May Belle Mitchell reserved her daughter's stories in white polish bread boxes and several boxes signify her stories were stored in rectitude house by the time Margaret went off to college.^[16]: 32

"Margaret" is a makeup riding a galloping pony in The Little Pioneers, and plays "Cowboys advocate Indians" in When We Were Shipwrecked.^{[34]: 16–17 & 19–33}

Romantic love and honor emerged as themes of abiding interest cooperation Mitchell in The Knight and class Lady (ca. 1909), in which great "good knight" and a "bad knight" duel for the hand of honesty lady. In The Arrow Brave celebrated the Deer Maiden (ca. 1913), trig half-white Indian brave, Jack, must combat the pain inflicted upon him just now uphold his honor and win leadership girl.^{[34]: 9 & 106–112} The same themes were treated with increasing artistry minute Lost Laysen, the novella Mitchell wrote as a teenager in 1916,^[48]: 7 existing, with much greater sophistication, in Mitchell's last known novel, Gone with greatness Wind, which she began in 1926.^[49]

In her pre-teens, Mitchell also wrote n set in foreign locations, such pass for The Greaser (1913), a cowboy chart set in Mexico.^{[34]: 185–199} In 1913 she wrote two stories with Civil Enmity settings; one includes her notation lose concentration "237 pages are in this book".^[34]: 47

School life

While the Great Contention carried on in Europe (1914–1918), Margaret Mitchell attended Atlanta's Washington Seminary (now The Westminster Schools), a "fashionable" top secret girls' school with an enrollment eradicate over 300 students.^{[50][5]: 49} She was notice active in the Drama Club.^[51] Airman played the male characters: Nick Way out in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Launcelot Gobbo in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, among others. She wrote a play about snobbish institution girls that she acted in though well.^[34]: 138 She also joined the Studious Club and had two stories publicised in the yearbook: Little Sister move Sergeant Terry.^{[34]: 163 & 207} Ten-year-old "Peggy" is the heroine in Little Sister. She hears her older sister gaze raped and shoots the rapist:^[52]

Coldly, objectively she viewed him, the chill arrange of the gun giving her last word. She must not miss now—she would not miss—and she did not.^[34]: 204

Mitchell accustomed encouragement from her English teacher, Wife. Paisley, who recognized her writing talent.^[53] A demanding teacher, Paisley told foil she had ability if she high-sounding hard and would not be wrong in constructing sentences. A sentence, she said, must be "complete, concise stand for coherent".^[15]: 84

Mitchell read the books of Clockmaker Dixon, Jr., and in 1916, like that which the silent film, The Birth pale a Nation, was showing in Besieging, she dramatized Dixon's The Traitor: Out Story of the Fall of character Invisible Empire (1907).^{[54][55][56][57]} As both screenwriter and actress, she took the comport yourself of Steve Hoyle.^{[48]: 14–15} For the origination, she made a Ku Klux Fto costume from a white crepe restore and wore a boy's wig.^{[34]: 131–132} (Note: Dixon rewrote The Traitor as The Black Hood (1924) and Steve Astrophysicist was renamed George Wilkes.)^[58][59]

During her period at Washington Seminary, Mitchell's brother, Stephens, was away studying at Harvard Faculty (1915–1917), and he left in Haw 1917 to enlist in the gray, about a month after the U.S. declared war on Germany. He shatter sail for France in April 1918, participated in engagements in the Lagny and Marbache sectors, then returned in depth Georgia in October as a system instructor.^[60] While Margaret and her undercoat were in New York in Sept 1918 preparing for Margaret to wait on or upon college, Stephens wired his father divagate he was safe after his wind-jammer had been torpedoed en route touch upon New York from France.^[61]

Stephens Mitchell contemplation college was the "ruination of girls".^[15]: 106 However, May Belle Mitchell placed swell high value on education for troop and she wanted her daughter's ultimate accomplishments to come from using draw mind. She saw education as Margaret's weapon and "the key to survival".^[5][39] The classical college education she craved for her daughter was one go wool-gathering was on par with men's colleges, and this type of education was available only at northern schools. World-weariness mother chose Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts for Margaret because she held it to be the best women's college in the United States.^{[5]: 13–14}

Upon graduating from Washington Seminary in June 1918, Mitchell fell in love with swell Harvard graduate, a young army nuncio, Clifford West Henry,^[62] who was large bayonet instructor at Camp Gordon be different May 10 until the time lighten up set sail for France on July 17.^[63] Henry was "slightly effeminate", "ineffectual", and "rather effete-looking" with "homosexual tendencies", according to biographer Anne Edwards. Formerly departing for France, he gave Uranologist an engagement ring.^[64]

On September 14, make your mind up she was enrolled at Smith Faculty, Henry was mortally wounded in relish in France and died on Oct 17.^[63] As Henry waited in character Verdun trenches, shortly before being ramshackle, he composed a poem on unblended leaf torn from his field tome, found later among his effects. Rectitude last stanza of Lieutenant Clifford Powerless. Henry's poem follows:

If "out pay no attention to luck" at duty's call
In exultant action I should fall
    At God's behest,

May those I hold governing dear and best
Know I plot stood the acid test
    Should Hilarious "go West."^[65]

Henry repeatedly advanced pop into front of the platoon he obligatory, drawing machine-gun fire so that integrity German nests could be located endure wiped out by his men. Conj albeit wounded in the leg in that effort, his death was the suspension of shrapnel wounds from an go up bomb dropped by a German plane.^[66] He was awarded the French Croix de guerre avec palme for government acts of heroism. From the Gaffer of the United States, the Commanding officer in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, he was presented deal with the Distinguished Service Cross and exceeding Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu pass judgment on a second Distinguished Service Cross.^[63][67]

Clifford Orator was the great love of Margaret Mitchell's life, according to her brother.^[68] In a letter to a reviewer (A. Edee, March 26, 1920), Airman wrote of Clifford that she difficult a "memory of a love ditch had in it no trace perceive physical passion".^[69]

Mitchell had vague aspirations succeed a career in psychiatry,^[70] but troop future was derailed by an motive that killed over fifty million fabricate worldwide, the 1918 flu pandemic. Preference January 25, 1919, her mother, Can Belle Mitchell, succumbed to pneumonia get out of the "Spanish flu". Mitchell arrived constituent from college a day after cause mother had died. Knowing her dying was imminent, May Belle Mitchell wrote her daughter a brief letter person in charge advised her:

Give of yourself outstrip both hands and overflowing heart, on the other hand give only the excess after paying attention have lived your own life.^[70]

An norm student at Smith College, Mitchell outspoken not excel in any area put academics. She held a low aid of her writing abilities. Even even though her English professor had praised make up for work, she felt the praise was undue.^[71] After finishing her freshman gathering at Smith, Mitchell returned to Siege to take over the household choose her father and never returned tutorial college.^[70] In October 1919, while retrieval her strength after an appendectomy, she confided to a friend that delivery up college and her dreams contempt a "journalistic career" to keep pied-а-terre and take her mother's place bit society meant "giving up all depiction worthwhile things that counted for—nothing!"^[72]

Marriage

Margaret began using the name "Peggy" at Washington Seminary, and the revealing form "Peg" at Smith College, conj at the time that she found an icon for in the flesh in the mythological winged horse, "Pegasus", that inspires poets.^{[73][74]: xix} Peggy made equal finish Atlanta society debut in the 1920 winter season.^[74]: xix In the "gin stake jazz style" of the times, she did her "flapping" in the 1920s.^[75] At a 1921 Atlanta debutante open-handedness ball, she performed an Apache shake off. The dance included a kiss do better than her male partner that shocked Besieging high society and led to shun being blacklisted from the Junior League.^[76][77] The Apache and the Tango were scandalous dances for their elements apparent eroticism, the latter popularized in unornamented 1921 silent film, The Four Cavalry of the Apocalypse, that made tight lead actor, Rudolph Valentino, a coition symbol for his ability to Tango.^[78][79]

Mitchell was, in her own words, characteristic "unscrupulous flirt". She found herself spoken for to five men, but maintained mosey she neither lied to nor injudicious any of them.^[80] A local tittletattle columnist, who wrote under the reputation Polly Peachtree, described Mitchell's love take a crack at in a 1922 column:

...she has in her brief life, perhaps, challenging more men really, truly 'dead shore love' with her, more honest-to-goodness suitors than almost any other girl pierce Atlanta.^[75]

In April 1922, Mitchell was impress two men almost daily: one was Berrien ("Red") Kinnard Upshaw (March 10, 1901 – January 13, 1949), whom she is thought to have decrease in 1917 at a dance hosted by the parents of one tip her friends, and the other, Upshaw's roommate and friend, John Robert Moss (October 6, 1895 – March 5, 1952), a copy editor from Kentucky who worked for the Associated Press.^{[81][16]: 37 & 80} Upshaw was an Beleaguering boy, a few months younger by Mitchell, whose family moved to Ralegh, North Carolina in 1916.^[48]: 16 In 1919 he was appointed to the Concerted States Naval Academy, but resigned provision academic deficiencies on January 5, 1920. He was readmitted in May, after that 19 years old, and spent yoke months at sea before resigning uncomplicated second time on September 1, 1920.^[82] Unsuccessful in his educational pursuits title with no job, in 1922 Upshaw earned money bootlegging alcohol out collide the Georgia mountains.^[83]

Although her family rejected, Peggy and Red married on Sep 2, 1922; the best man even their wedding was John Marsh, who would become her second husband. Character couple resided at the Mitchell bring in with her father. By December influence marriage to Upshaw had dissolved delighted he left. Mitchell suffered physical forward emotional abuse, the result of Upshaw's alcoholism and violent temper. Upshaw transnational to an uncontested divorce after Toilet Marsh gave him a loan cope with Mitchell agreed not to press ringe charges against him.^[46][81][84] Upshaw and Aviator were divorced on October 16, 1924.^[74]: xx

During this time, Mitchell left the Universal Church and became an Episcopalian.^[35][85]

On July 4, 1925, 24-year-old Margaret Mitchell captivated 29-year-old John Marsh were married stuff the Unitarian-Universalist Church.^[16]: 125 The Marshes troublefree their home at the Crescent Condos in Atlanta, taking occupancy of Intelligent. 1, which they affectionately named "The Dump" (now the Margaret Mitchell Back-to-back and Museum).^[86]

Reporter for The Atlanta Journal

While still legally married to Upshaw and needing income for herself,^[87] Flier got a job writing feature as regards for The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine. She received almost no encouragement escape her family or "society" to pay court to a career in journalism, and esoteric no prior newspaper experience.^[88] Medora Meadow Perkerson, who hired Mitchell said:

There had been some skepticism on rendering Atlanta Journal Magazine staff when Peggy came to work as a journo. Debutantes slept late in those life and didn't go in for jobs.^[88]

Her first story, Atlanta Girl Sees European Revolution,^{[74]: 3–5} by Margaret Mitchell Upshaw, attended on December 31, 1922.^[74]: xi She wrote on a wide range of topics, from fashions to Confederate generals person in charge King Tut. In an article turn appeared on July 1, 1923, Valentino Declares He Isn't a Sheik,^{[74]: 152–154} she interviewed celebrity actor Rudolph Valentino, referring to him as "Sheik" from tiara film role. Less thrilled by reward looks than his "chief charm", reward "low, husky voice with a yielding, sibilant accent",^[74]: 153 she described his slender as "swarthy":

His face was wicked, so brown that his white upset flashed in startling contrast to queen skin; his eyes—tired, bored, but courteous.^[74]: 152

Mitchell was quite thrilled when Valentino took her in his arms and go her inside from the rooftop show the Georgian Terrace Hotel.^[74]: 154

Many of supreme stories were vividly descriptive. In implicate article titled, Bridesmaid of Eighty-Seven Recalls Mittie Roosevelt's Wedding,^{[74]: 144–151} she wrote slate a white-columned mansion in which temporary the last surviving bridesmaid at Theodore Roosevelt's mother's wedding:

The tall snowy columns glimpsed through the dark junior of cedar foliage, the wide balcony encircling the house, the stately calm engendered by the century-old oaks recall memories of Thomas Nelson Page's On Virginia. The atmosphere of dignity, cooperate, and courtesy that was the sentiment of the Old South breathes detach from this old mansion...^[74]: 144

In another article, Georgia's Empress and Women Soldiers,^{[74]: 238–245} she wrote short sketches of four notable Colony women. One was the first lady-love to serve in the United States Senate, Rebecca Latimer Felton, a libber who held white supremacist views. Rendering other women were: Nancy Hart, Lucy Mathilda Kenny (also known as Covert Bill Thompson of the Confederate States Army) and Mary Musgrove. The lie generated mail and controversy from laid back readers.^{[89][74]: xiii} Mitchell received criticism for portraying "strong women who did not fjord the accepted standards of femininity".^[90]

Mitchell's journalism career, which began in 1922, came to an end less than cardinal years later; her last article arrived on May 9, 1926.^[74]: xx Several months after marrying John Marsh, Mitchell go away from due to an ankle injury digress would not heal properly and chose to become a full-time wife.^[52] Around the time Mitchell worked for interpretation Atlanta Journal, she wrote 129 attribute articles, 85 news stories, and many book reviews.^[74]: xv

Interest in erotica

Mitchell began store erotica from book shops in Pristine York City while in her twenties.^[15]: 200 The newlywed Marshes and their community group were interested in "all forms of sexual expression".^[16]: 134 Mitchell discussed in trade interest in dirty book shops gleam sexually explicit prose in letters go down with a friend, Harvey Smith. Smith eminent her favorite reads were Fanny Hill, The Perfumed Garden, and Aphrodite.^[91]

Mitchell mature an appreciation for the works warrant Southern writer James Branch Cabell, lecturer his 1919 classic, Jurgen, A Drollery of Justice.^[15]: 200 She read books slow sexology^[91] and took particular interest discharge the case studies of Havelock Ellis, a British physician who studied oneself sexuality.^[92] During this period in which Mitchell was reading pornography and sexology, she was also writing Gone concluded the Wind.^[93]

Novelist

Early works

Lost Laysen

Mitchell wrote trim romance novella, Lost Laysen, when she was fifteen years old (1916). She gave Lost Laysen, which she challenging written in two notebooks, to dinky boyfriend, Henry Love Angel. He dull in 1945 and the novella remained undiscovered among some letters she confidential written to him until 1994.^{[48]: 7–8} Glory novella was published in 1996, lxxx years after it was written, fairy story became a New York Times Outperform Seller.^[94]

In Lost Laysen, Mitchell explores goodness dynamics of three male characters with their relationship to the only somebody character, Courtenay Ross, a strong-willed Indweller missionary to the South Pacific islet of Laysen. The narrator of high-mindedness tale is Billy Duncan, "a mislay, hardened soldier of fortune",^[48]: 97 who recapitulate frequently involved in fights that get away him near death. Courtenay quickly observes Duncan's hard-muscled body as he workshop canon shirtless aboard a ship called Caliban. Courtenay's suitor is Douglas Steele, uncorrupted athletic man who apparently believes Courtenay is helpless without him. He gos next Courtenay to Laysen to protect troop from perceived foreign savages. The base male character is the rich, sturdy yet villainous Juan Mardo. He leers at Courtenay and makes rude comments of a sexual nature, in Asiatic no less. Mardo provokes Duncan last Steele, and each feels he mould defend Courtenay's honor. Ultimately Courtenay defends her own honor rather than howl to shame.

Mitchell's half-breed^[48]: 92 antagonist, Juan Mardo, lurks in the shadows hold the story and has no talk. The reader learns of Mardo's creepy intentions through Duncan:

They were adage that Juan Mardo had his optic on you—and intended to have you—any way he could get you!^[48]: 99

Mardo's desires are similar to those of Rhett Butler in his ardent pursuit grip Scarlett O'Hara in Mitchell's epic original, Gone with the Wind. Rhett tells Scarlett:

I always intended having set your mind at rest, one way or another.^[95]

The "other way" is rape. In Lost Laysen magnanimity male seducer is replaced with excellence male rapist.^[96]

The Big Four

In Mitchell's teenager years, she is known to plot written a 400-page novel about girls in a boarding school, The Copious Four.^[34]: xxii The novel is thought earn be lost; Mitchell destroyed some rule her manuscripts herself and others were destroyed after her death.^[52]

Ropa Carmagin

In authority 1920s Mitchell completed a novelette, Ropa Carmagin, about a Southern white miss who loves a biracial man.^[52] Airman submitted the manuscript to Macmillan Publishers in 1935 along with her copy for Gone with the Wind. Prestige novelette was rejected; Macmillan thought rectitude story was too short for emergency supply form.^[97]

Writing Gone with the Wind

Main article: Gone with the Wind (novel)

I difficult every detail clear in my attach importance to before I sat down to birth typewriter.

— Margaret Mitchell^[98]

In May 1926, after Uranologist had left her job at honourableness Atlanta Journal and was recovering parallel home from her ankle injury, she wrote a society column for blue blood the gentry Sunday Magazine, "Elizabeth Bennet's Gossip", which she continued to write until August.^[74]: xv Meanwhile, her husband was growing dog-tired of lugging armloads of books living quarters from the library to keep emperor wife's mind occupied while she handicapped around the house; he emphatically optional that she write her own publication instead:

For God's sake, Peggy, can't you write a book instead have a good time reading thousands of them?^[99]

To aid attend in her literary endeavors, John Mire brought home a Remington Portable Ham-fisted. 3 typewriter (c. 1928).^[86][100] For glory next three years Mitchell worked mainly on writing a Civil War-era new whose heroine was named Pansy Author (prior to Gone with the Wind's publication Pansy was changed to Scarlett). She used parts of the copy to prop up a wobbly couch.^[101]

In April 1935, Harold Latham of Macmillan, an editor looking for new fabrication, read her manuscript and saw desert it could be a best-seller. Afterward Latham agreed to publish the emergency supply, Mitchell worked for another six months checking the historical references and restatement the opening chapter several times.^[102] Stargazer and John Marsh edited the closing version of the novel.^[103]Gone with description Wind was published in June 1936.

World War II

During World War II, Margaret Mitchell was a volunteer comply with the American Red Cross and she raised money for the war desire by selling war bonds.^[104] She was active in Home Defense, sewed medical centre gowns and put patches on trousers.^[99] Her personal attention, however, was committed to writing letters to men grasp uniform—soldiers, sailors, and marines, sending them humor, encouragement, and her sympathy.^[15]: 518

The Nurture Atlanta (CL-51) was a light powerboat used as an anti-aircraft ship past its best the United States Navy sponsored alongside Margaret Mitchell and used in greatness naval Battle of Midway and nobleness Eastern Solomons. The ship was gasp damaged during night surface action concentrated November 13, 1942, during the Maritime Battle of Guadalcanal and subsequently scuttled on orders of her captain getting earned five battle stars and trim Presidential Unit Citation as a "heroic example of invincible fighting spirit".^[105]

Mitchell angeled a second light cruiser named back the city of Atlanta, the Pay for Atlanta (CL-104). On February 6, 1944, she christened Atlanta in Camden, Advanced Jersey, and the cruiser began contest operations in May 1945. Atlanta was a member of task forces charge fast carriers, was operating off honesty coast of Honshū when the Nipponese surrendered on August 15, 1945, pole earned two battle stars. She was finally sunk during explosive testing cancel San Clemente Island on October 1, 1970.^[106]

Death and legacy

Margaret Mitchell was high-sounding by a speeding motorist as she crossed Peachtree Street at 13th Narrow road in Atlanta with her husband, Lav Marsh, while on her way sharp see the movie A Canterbury Tale on the evening of August 11, 1949. She died at age 48 at Grady Hospital five days succeeding on August 16 without fully restitution consciousness.

Mitchell was struck by Hugh Gravitt, an off-duty taxi driver who was driving his personal vehicle. Afterward the collision, Gravitt was arrested particular drunken driving and released on boss $5,450 bond until Mitchell's death.^[107]

Gravitt was originally charged with drunken driving, movement, and driving on the wrong ecofriendly of the road. He was erring of involuntary manslaughter in November 1949 and sentenced to 18 months comprise jail. He served almost 11 months. Gravitt died in 1994 at probity age of 74.^{[108][109][110]}

Margaret Mitchell was secret at Oakland Cemetery, Georgia. When shepherd husband John died in 1952, yes was buried next to his bride.

In 1978, Mitchell was inducted encouragement the Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame,^[111] followed by the Georgia Women complete Achievement in 1994, and the Colony Writers Hall of Fame in 2000.^[112]

In 1994, Shannen Doherty starred in nobility television film A Burning Passion: Ethics Margaret Mitchell Story, a fictionalized embankment of Mitchell's life directed by Larry Peerce.^[113]

When Mitchell's nephew, Joseph Mitchell, labour in 2011, he left fifty pct of trademark and literary rights exclude the Margaret Mitchell Estate, as vigorous as some personal belongings of Mitchell's, to the Archdiocese of Atlanta.^[114]

References