When the pandemic began in 2020, forcing all museums in town to shut down for months, the Atlanta History Center decided it was the right time to revamp the aging Margaret Mitchell House in Midtown.
The museum ― which opened in 1997 in the building where the Atlanta author wrote much of her Pulitzer-Prize winning novel “Gone With the Wind” more than 90 years ago ― closed for more than four years and is reopening Wednesday, July 10, with a completely revamped presentation.
“The exhibit felt tired,” said Sheffield Hale, president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta History Center since 2012, who also served on the board of the Margaret Mitchell House before the two organizations merged in 2004. His goal was to offer more context regarding both the book and the Oscar-winning 1939 film.
The original presentation was a hodgepodge of elements from Mitchell’s life, the novel and the movie. The revamp attempts to tie the three together in a more coherent storytelling fashion, Hale said.
Claire Haley, vice president of special projects at the Atlanta History Center, said they were very deliberate to ensure the exhibit would speak to a more modern audience, seeking guidance from an array of historians and academics.
“We started from scratch,” Hale said. “We now think it’s close to being right.”
Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC
Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC
Stephane Dunn, a professor at Morehouse College specializing in cinema, television and emerging media, read Mitchell’s novel as a teen and grew up watching “Gone With the Wind” multiple times.
“I think the allure was the spectacle of it,” Dunn said. “It had all these memorable characters. The movie had this glamorous Hollywood cinematic gloss. It’s s splashy show full of memorable lines.”
Selected as part of the advisory committee, she got a sneak preview of the new exhibit.
“They really paid careful, thoughtful attention to the implications of race,” Dunn said. “They wanted to own its complicated, controversial history.”
Credit: RODNEY HO
Credit: RODNEY HO
Matthew Bernstein, an Emory professor on film and media who will speak at a panel discussion at the Margaret Mitchell House July 30 about “Gone With the Wind,” has not seen the exhibit yet but reviewed 80 pages of museum display text and came away impressed.
“They were really thorough,” Bernstein said, “They place Margaret Mitchell in context of her time and explain how she conveyed the mythology of Lost Cause really clearly, as well as the inherent racism in the depiction of the slave characters. They also do a bang-up job in the last portion of the exhibit comparing the film and the realities of the Civil War and Reconstruction.”
Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC
Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC
Hale said the 98-year-old history center, whose main campus is in Buckhead, didn’t have a financial need to reopen the exhibit immediately. The Margaret Mitchell House is only a small portion of the organization’s annual budget when it comes to revenue or cost.
He also noted 40% of the Margaret Mitchell House exhibit attendees before the pandemic were international travelers, especially from Asia. Unfortunately, according to industry data, Asian tourists are still not traveling to the United States at the same level as they were in 2019. “We’ve had a lot of fans from China, Japan, Korea and Germany,” Hale said. “I don’t think the Chinese tourists are fully back yet.”
The museum has been heavily reconfigured. Previously, it was split into three locations: the main floor, upstairs and space in a neighboring building also owned by the Atlanta History Center on the same block.
Now the exhibit is consolidated in a contiguous 2,300-square-foot space on the first floor. One notable change: a sizable gift shop has been eliminated, save for a few books for sale by the reception area. That real estate now features how Black people actually lived during the Reconstruction and how Atlanta and the world reacted to the long shadow of “Gone With the Wind” over the decades.
“This is a small museum about a big book and big topics,” Hale said, noting that the Margaret Mitchell House website will include even more information.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
The three rooms that encompassed Mitchell’s original 650-square-foot apartment, which she affectionately dubbed “The Dump,” used to be a basic re-enactment of what it looked when she lived there with largely replica furniture and furnishings. (Despite two arson fires in the mid-1990s, her apartment space on the first floor of the 1899 building was not severely damaged in either case.)
For the newest renovation, they kept the rooms (and Mitchell’s original writing desk and chair) but got rid of most of the replica furniture. They used the extra space to provide more biographical info on her life and three-minute videos about her and what Atlanta was like at the time.
In one video, Hale describes Mitchell, a former Atlanta Journal reporter, as “spunky, rebellious in her youth, a voracious reader. ... She was fascinated by the history she heard from family and friends, many of whom had a strong connection to the Confederacy.”
The exhibit is not about artifacts, though there are a few, like Mitchell’s driver’s license, which curiously showed her birth date as 1908, not 1900. “We don’t have the room for it anyway,” Hale said. For fans of movie props, Hale said the more appropriate place to go would be the Marietta Gone With the Wind Museum at Brumby Hall 17 miles northwest of the Margaret Mitchell House.
The building now called the Margaret Mitchell House was for many years apartments that fell into disrepair and was almost demolished by a developer. But in 1989, Mayor Andrew Young designated the space as a historical city landmark, securing its future. The late Atlanta mover and shaker Mary Rose Taylor led the crusade to create the museum despite the arson setbacks, getting it open by 1997. Taylor died in 2020 of the effects of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Tom Smith, an Emory University economics professor, said his mother, now in her 80s, was a fan of “Gone With the Wind.” That generation, he noted, is dying off. He isn’t sure the appeal of the book or film has translated to younger generations. The movie hasn’t aged as well as, say, “The Wizard of Oz” from the same year of release.
“Frankly, my dear, I am not sure if that many people will give a damn,” Smith said, paraphrasing Rhett Butler in the movie.
Hale isn’t expecting massive crowds and the modest footprint of the museum can’t really accommodate them. He hopes to draw 30,000 tourists to the exhibit its first year reopened, comparable to attendance in the 2010s. That equates to just 100 people a day on average when it’s open Tuesdays through Sundays.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
How well the Margaret Mitchell House performs won’t make or break the Atlanta History Center, which remains in excellent financial shape.
According to its latest 990 form required by the government, the nonprofit organization generated $22.3 million in revenue with $15.4 million in expenses for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022.
Hale said the revamp, which cost $790,000 including building renovations, was funded entirely from two sources: the 2020 sale of a neighboring parking lot (where the center will still have parking access when Dallas real estate company Trammell Crow turns it into a building) and special rights sold to other developers seeking to create greater density in the area in exchange for the Margaret Mitchell House block remaining as it is.
That Midtown neighborhood, Hale noted, has only gotten more vibrant in recent years.
“I think we have an even bigger local constituency for our nighttime programs,” he said, such as author talks, which have provided supplemental income. Over the years, notable authors such as Pat Conroy, Erica Jong, Candace Bushnell and Tom Wolfe have appeared in the event space. It’s also available for rentals for corporate events, weddings and rehearsal dinners, seating up to 120 people with a porch and two lawns outside.
“What we want to do is bring back the relevance of that block and our cultural footprint,” Hale said.
IF YOU GO
Margaret Mitchell House
9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday (starting Wednesday, July 10). $18.50. Atlanta History Center Midtown, 979 Crescent Ave. NE, Atlanta, www.atlantahistorycenter.com
A special panel discussion about “Gone With the Wind,” 6-9 p.m. Tuesday, July 30. $15 members, $20 nonmembers, at the Margaret Mitchell House commercial space, including admission to the museum. atlantahistorycenter.com
