by Gone With the Wind (GWTW) by Margaret Mitchell, the American classic published in 1936, is set in Atlanta and Clayton County, Ga. The Road to Tara Museum is in Jonesboro, Ga., in the heart of Clark County, just south of Atlanta. (Tara is the name of the plantation in the book.)
I thought GWTW was a pretty good book and the museum would be a fun stop. Doug, on the other hand, was not quite as interested. One year he gave himself a reading challenge to read all of the Pulitzer Prize winning novels for fiction, which GWTW won in 1937, and he didn’t come away with a positive impression. I suppose I could see that reading it in this context would make it seem a bit of a fluff-piece.
However, I do the driving and planning, so off we went, and in the end, I’d say we both enjoyed it.
The museum is dedicated to anything remotely related to the book, its author, and oh-was-there-a-movie-made?
China that Margaret Mitchell owned? Yep.
Movie ephemera? Check.
Book covers? Yes ma’am.
Model of the fictional Tara? Of course.
Mostly, the focus is the film, which had its world premiere in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. It was such a big deal that the Georgia governor declared it a state holiday! However, the movie is not all fun and games – there’s quite a lot to think about in terms of the way African Americans are portrayed (“It’s fun to be a slave serving Miss Scarlett!” would pretty much sum it up), and to its credit, the museum does have displays addressing the topic.
We’ve not yet re-watched the film, but one of the items on display is a Carol Burnett doll from her show’s parody Went With the Wind – if you’ve not seen it, it’s worth a view (you can see it here).
There is also a Gone With the Wind Museum in Marietta, north of Atlanta, but fortunately for Doug it was only open during his conference; there’s also Margaret Mitchell’s home in Atlanta, but that was closed for renovations (Doug should buy a lottery ticket).
The cover photo shows the character roundels that hung across the street from the Loew’s Grand Theater during the Atlanta premiere.
Before the movie featuring Vivien Leigh was released, local artists were free to use their imagination in their book covers, but after the movie came out, Vivien was so associated with Scarlett that almost all images after featured her likeness.
