Posted on 06/25/2006 9:55:57 AM PDT by EveningStar
Confined to her bed in Atlanta by a broken ankle and arthritis, she was given a stack of blank paper by her husband, who said, "Write a book." Did she ever.
The novel's first title became its last words, "Tomorrow is another day," and at first she named the protagonist Pansy. But Pansy became Scarlett, and the title of the book published 70 years ago this week became "Gone With the Wind."
You might think that John Steinbeck, not Margaret Mitchell, was the emblematic novelist of the 1930s, and that the publishing event in American fiction in that difficult decade was his "Grapes of Wrath." Published in 1939, it captured the Depression experience that many Americans had, and that many more lived in fear of. Steinbeck's novel became a great movie, and by now 14 million copies of the book have been sold...
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
I agree with you regarding Lincoln's death, because Lincoln was going to carry out the "malice toward none" program, which was basically, do nothing to try and upset the Southern social order. That would have been the best thing for the South, and as his dutiful successor, Andrew Johnson tried to carry out Lincoln's program, and how did the Radicals in Congress reward Johnson for doing what Lincoln would have wanted. If I recall right, he was impeached. All to serve the ego of Thaddeus Stevens.
Your conclusions are as warped as your history. What does protecting the Constitution and the Union from Traitors have to do with being a slave of the state? "The South" did nothing of the kind the common man there had far less power and was MUCH more under the control of the Ruling Powers than those in the NOrth.
Slavers treated common Southerners with contempt. They were nothing but chattel to them. MAYBE 20% of those eligible in the North were eligible to vote in the South.
Please don't pretend the ARISTOCRACY which controlled the South was anything but.
The Republic of West Florida was the nation that seceded from Spain in 1810. The capital was in Baton Rouge, and it's territory stretched from the Mississippi River to the Perdido River. It was an independent nation and it's territory was annexed into the Union. Split equally between Louisiana and Mississippi territory. The eastern half that went to Mississippi territory would become part of Alabama territory when Mississippi became a state.
You have no chance of "taking me apart" ALL of the DS'ers have tried. However, as I am on a road trip and about to head back to Chicago my time on the computer will be limited. I have one more day to spend with my Navy Nuke son so re-fighting the Lost Cause is not high on my priorities.
There was NO excuse for what the Slavers tried to do to this Nation. ALL their actions were based upon LIES and distortions of the meaning of "Constitution" and "union". Their Machiavellian drive to ensure the election of Lincoln by splitting the DemocRAT Party as an excuse to claim "tyranny" into three has few parallels. Lincoln would not have used unconstitutional means to remove Slavery.
Ah, yeah. 'bout to go on vacation for the Fourth. One week in Destin, laying on the beach, drinking Red Stripe, reading Sowell and Scalia. Weeee!
Destin!One of my favorite beaches on earth ... the prettiest, whitest sand and the greenest water. Way too developed now from how I remember it as a child.
Be careful and have a good time!
Of course Southern women are American women ... the best of all. My post, which you have completely misinterpreted, was meant to indicate a superiority of character [well, maybe not in Scarlett, herself] in the Southern women about whom Mitchell wrote.
Just for the record ... I have never, never called Southerners bigots. There may be some bigots in the South ... but most of those are carpetbaggers if you look closely enough! Southerners in general are NOT bigots. Where on earth did that come from? Certainly not from anything I have ever posted. Read my posts. I have probably been more supportive of the South and its inhabitants ... including the much maligned ihhabitants of New Orleans ... than anyone else on FRee Republic.
I know EXACTLY what I am speaking of. I lived my entire childhood in a small town in south Arkansas and experienced it everyday. Plus, in the North 50-60% of the people were NOT racist at all while in the South it was no more than 20-30%. The deaths of civil rights workers was widely applauded.
Little girls bombed in churches with no interest by law enforcement.
Governors were elected for "standing up to the federal government" which, in fact, meant denying Blacks had any civil or political rights.
Who do you think provided the voices in the Congress opposed to the Civil Rights Acts which made it clear that Blacks would not be denied their rights? Do you believe that Northern Republicans voted against them?
Amen. The only reason there was a sequel was that the copyright was about to expire, so the estate of Peggy Marsh (Margaret Mitchell's name in her daily life) wanted to push out an officially sanctioned sequel before everyone and his brother turned out unofficial ones.
Some of the best writers of the South, notably Pat Conroy, lined up for the gig. But for reasons that can only be explained by the injudicious use of hard drugs, Mitchell's heirs chose Alexandra Ripley, a prolific hack with a long resume of bodice-ripping melodrama.
The sequel was appalling, and I can almost hear Margaret Mitchell spinning in her grave from here. She's buried in Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery, the city's oldest municipal cemetery and one with a large Confederate section, some graves marked, others not.
Will's column gets the gist, but leaves out an important detail -- John Marsh didn't just drop a ream of paper and tell his wife to write a book. He also made daily runs to the public library, returning books and bringing new ones home.
GWTW was meticulously researched, and while it is a work of fiction, it is an accurate tactical account of the Atlanta Campaign, and an accurate account of Reconstruction -- certainly not objective, but how Southerners saw things. The best teacher I had in high school, Mr. Morgan, used GWTW as a starting point to teach that period of history.
One other point -- GWTW is the biggest movie blockbuster in history, and it isn't close. Adjusted for inflation (first-run GWTW viewers paid a nickel to see it; if you want to watch it in a theater today, eight bucks is the minimum), Titanic is a relative pipsqueak. With the competition from TV, home video, video games, the Internet and iPods, I don't think GWTW will ever be dethroned.
The gala premiere was held at Atlanta's Lowe's Grand theatre. The after-party was at the Biltmore Hotel. Hattie McDaniel, who would win an Oscar for her portrayal of Mammy in the movie, was not invited to either of those strictly-segregated venues.
Meanwhile, a couple miles down Auburn Avenue, a young Michael Lester King, Jr. (his father would later legally change his name and his son's to Martin Luther) was just learning to read and write.
Will is dead-on in observing that we've come a very long way in a pretty short time.
OK I retract. :) Guess I misread when you said Southern women are a different breed then and now as a negative. I do hear the negative a lot on here unfortunately. Sorry I assumed you were doing the same.
That's what I am talking about.
Your little podunk racist town was the exception, NOT the rule.
Your little world was only an odd little world after all and that, plus the false history taught to you by liberal educators, has shaped your view.
Since you are here at FR, that proves you have shaken off much off the revisionist history that was forced down your throat. But your true education is still incomplete.
We will never know since Selznick and Co. never offered to bring her since they "knew" the South was "racist."
The "Goat Man" is one Charles "Ches" McCartney. He travelled right in front of my in-laws house several times, we bought them a picture of him, the wagon and goats. He was actually from Van Buren Township, Iowa. When he was a young man a tree fell on him, crushing a shoulder, lung and elbow and hip. After that he took to the road as a part-time preacher. He was still alive in 2004, not sure of his status today other than he's in a nursing home near Macon, GA.
You have to be one of the most obtuse, ignorant people on this forum. It has been repeatedly posted to you that Gen. Nathan B. Forrest had NO part - NONE, ZIP, ZILCH, NADA - in the formation of that group. He did, however, advocate for it's TERMINATION. He was an advocate for civil rights and racial harmony, and was recognized for such by blacks, receiveing an award for his position of racial harmony and equal rights.
Mitchell may capture some aspects of the Old South that modern liberal professors want to ignore or deny, but she reflects what white Southerners of the 1920s and 1930s thought when they remembered or tried to visualize the Civil War and Reconstruction, which was at best an incomplete picture. Slavery was a miserable life for almost all of the slaves, apart from a few of the house servants maybe, and the KKK used violence to restore the Democratic Party to power.
head over to DU, where you belong. they LIKE arrogantly ignorant false posts, over there. you'll fit right in.
free dixie,sw
Thanks for the update. Fascinating.
When she won her Oscar she had to restrict her acceptance to reading a speech written for her by Selznick.
Both Scarlett and Melanie combine to form the Southern woman. A true southern woman is an iron fist in a velvet glove.
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