This is part of an ongoing series to find interviews with authors whose books appear on the Romance MFA syllabus. Previous installments have featured E.M. Forster and E.M. Hull. Today I’m looking for a Margaret Mitchell interview, and I’ve found one! PBS has shared a transcript of a 1936 radio broadcast, wherein Margaret Mitchell was interviewed by Mrs. Medora Perkerson, of The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine.
Margaret Mitchell Interview
Here’s how Mitchell, whom Mrs. Medora Perkerson addresses as “Peggy,” describes Gone With the Wind.
My novel is the story of a girl named Scarlett O’Hara, who lived in Atlanta during the Civil War and the days of Reconstruction. The book isn’t strictly a book about the war, nor is it a historical novel. It’s about the effect of the Civil War on a set of characters who lived in Atlanta at that time.
She also discusses her research for the novel.
My brother, Stephens Mitchell, had written an excellent Article in the Atlanta Historical Bulletin on the war-time industries of Atlanta. I used much of his material. I also used facts I myself dug out of old newspapers of the war days and old diaries and letters of the period. … I read the files of old newspapers from 1860 to1878 and I read hundreds of old magazines, diaries and letters. And I don’t know how many hundreds of books I consulted. Those books were on every subject from Mid-Victorian architecture to how far a Confederate rifle would shoot.
Not just research, but her family background gave her a deep knowledge of the Civil War from the perspective of white Atlanta.
I grew up at a time when children were seen and not heard. That means that when I was a child I had to hear a lot about the Civil war on Sunday afternoons when I was dragged hither and yon to call on elderly relatives and friends of the family who had fought in the war or lived behind the lines. When I was a little girl, children were not encouraged to express their personalities by running and screaming on Sunday afternoons. When we went calling, I was usually scooped up onto a lap, told that I didn’t look like a soul on either side of the family and then forgotten for the rest of the afternoon while the gathering spiritedly refought the Civil war.
The research was important because Mitchell was well aware of the fact that readers will not hesitate to call out a historical author for inaccurate details.
The bustle came into style in 1868, replacing the wide hoop skirts of the war days. If I hadn’t gotten the date of the bustle correctly, lots of old ladies would have written me indignantly — saying that they never wore rose covered bustles at that time. I had to do a lot of work on such small details as this.
Most telling, I think, is her description of the details she didn’t hear about the war.
I heard everything in the world except that the Confederates lost the war. When I was ten years old, it was a violent shock to learn that General Lee had been defeated. I didn’t believe it when I first heard it and I was indignant. I still find it hard to believe, so strong are childhood impressions.
If you want more of this Margaret Mitchell interview, you can read the whole transcript on the PBS website. It’s part of a wider set of materials around an hour long documentary, which I’m not going to watch because I still have outstanding reading to do from my list of what to read after–or instead of–Gone With the Wind.
