Exactly 75 years ago over one million people poured into the city of Atlanta for the premiere of Gone with the Wind at the Loew’s Grand Theatre. The region around the city is Ground Zero for “Windies”, a nickname for Gone with the Wind devotees. The home where Margaret Mitchell wrote the bulk of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is now a museum open to the public, but the suburb of Marietta is where the official Gone with the Wind Museum: Scarlett on the Square is located. Open since 2003 in a former cotton warehouse, the collection was started by Dr. Chris Sullivan, the “keeper of the Gone with the Wind flame”. The highlights of the exhibit include Scarlett’s original Bengaline honeymoon gown (the only surviving outfit from the movie on permanent display anywhere), several of Mitchell’s personal volumes of the novel, the personal script of Ona Munson (who portrayed Belle Watling in case you’re not a “Windie”), theatre seats from the movie premiere, and a Gone with the Wind-themed Christmas tree. Gone With the Wind soaps, perfumes, costume jewelry, board games, liquor, watches, music boxes, needlepoint pillow shams, paper dolls, magazines, and cookie jars are also on display (and even a Sock Monkey as seen above). Additionally, the museum has seventy-five foreign editions of the novel, from Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia to Denmark and Vietnam, which shows that people all over the world do give a damn.
Gone with the Wind Museum at the Loew’s Grand Theatre
