Jun 26, 2024 - News

Margaret Mitchell House reopening in July with a reimagined exhibit

Thomas Wheatley

Side by side photos of museum objects including a suitcase in front of a photo of a man and woman greeting and an old fashioned typewriter with a scribbled out manuscript to the side — Items on display include the suitcase a Macmillan editor used to carry the original manuscript to New York City and Mitchell's typewriter. Credit: Courtesy of the Atlanta History Center

The Midtown apartment building where Margaret Mitchell wrote most of "Gone With the Wind" is reopening after a renovation and reimagining of how to present the complex work of historical fiction.

Why it matters: Mitchell's only novel created a mystique and mythos around Atlanta that, despite your feelings about the book, helped put Atlanta into the global consciousness.

Zoom in: The new exhibit, "Telling Stories: Gone With the Wind and American Memory," covers how the writer's life in her native Atlanta shaped her views on history, according to the Atlanta History Center, which owns and operates the museum.

The museum reopens on July 10.

What they're saying: "On a larger scale," the history center said in a release, "the exhibit examines the impact of the book and its movie adaptation on our culture, including how it has furthered Lost Cause Ideology."

Context: Mitchell shared the ground-level apartment with her husband John Marsh, and she was struck and killed by a motorist while crossing Peachtree Street not far from the building.

Preservationists saved the building from demolition in the 1980s.

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Margaret Mitchell House reopening in July with a reimagined exhibit

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