This entry is my 3rd post today! Sorry! But, the Atlanta History Center just contact me with some wonderful news about the Margaret Mitchell House. As previously reported, the MM House had plans to sell some of their property to make way for a parking lot, retail, office etc. Then, they laid off most of their workers earlier this year… well, it looks like the MM House is making a come back. They’ve reorganized things a bit and appears everything isn’t as spread out anymore. See below!

Margaret Mitchell House - New Crescent Ave Entrance

ATLANTA, GA – On July 4, 1925, Atlanta native Margaret Mitchell married John Marsh.  That same day, the newlyweds moved into a small apartment on Crescent Avenue, near Peachtree and Tenth Streets. Today, the Margaret Mitchell House, birthplace of the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel Gone With the Wind, is a designated city landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a popular tourist destination, and home to the award-winning Literary Center at the Margaret Mitchell House.

On July 4 and 5, 2009 – eighty-four years after Margaret Mitchell moved into Apartment No. 1 – a new visitor experience debuts at the Margaret Mitchell House.  Guests will enjoy free admission to the Margaret Mitchell House on both days for a special Fourth of July weekend celebration featuring tours of Mitchell’s apartment; new exhibitions exploring Mitchell’s life, her novel, and the popular film adaptation; hand-cranked ice cream; period dancing; croquet and other period games; Gone With the Wind trivia and prizes; a living history performance of Mitchell’s newspaper career; face painting; and arts and crafts.  Food and beverages will be available for purchase from Mary Mac’s Tea Room.  For more information, visit MargaretMitchellHouse.com or call 404.249.7015.

New Visitor Experience

The Margaret Mitchell House, midtown campus of the Atlanta History Center, has recently undergone a series of subtle, yet significant transformations.  In seeking to provide an updated and enhanced visitor experience at the Margaret Mitchell House, the Atlanta History center developed a plan to focus on a historically accurate and cohesive visitor experience at the Midtown campus.

Since the public opening of the Margaret Mitchell House in 1997, guests began tours of the property in the former Visitor’s Center. As part of the new visitor experience, guests to the Margaret Mitchell House now enter the House through the Crescent Avenue entrance, just as Margaret Mitchell did when she lived in the apartment building.  To provide immediate access to the original Crescent Avenue entrance, a fence that previously blocked this side of the house has been moved to expose the entrance of the building and to provide a more welcoming and unobstructed view of the Crescent Avenue façade as Mitchell knew it.

Admissions and Visitor Services have been relocated to the Crescent Avenue level of the house, providing an immediate introduction to the guest experience.

Guided tours begin in Mitchell’s apartment and conclude with a new exhibition, Margaret Mitchell: A Passion for Character, which interprets the life of one of America’s most famous authors through stories, objects, quotes, and photographs of Mitchell, many of which have never been on public display.  Created by Don Rooney, Curator of Urban History, the exhibition explores the story behind Mitchell’s novel, including her early years, her career as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine, and the success and legacy of Gone With the Wind.

The exhibition also highlights her philanthropic work in the Atlanta community, a story that has gone largely unrecognized.  After the publication of Gone With the Wind and the release of the motion picture, Mitchell had the financial resources to support a number of philanthropic interests, including the Family Welfare Society and the Florence Crittenton Home for girls.  Mitchell also founded an annual literary contest in the Atlanta Federal penitentiary and volunteered with the American Red Cross, one of her passions in the community.  At a time when segregation was prominent, Mitchell was also committed to projects with Atlanta’s African American community, which included regular scholarship contributions to Morehouse College for medical students’ tuition, as well as financial contributions to establish an emergency room for African Americans at Grady Memorial Hospital.

While exploring the exhibition, visitors can try their hand at matching foreign-language editions of Gone With the Wind with their countries of origin and also try typing on a manual desktop typewriter like the one Margaret Mitchell used to write Gone With the Wind.  Since typewriters have been largely replaced by personal computers, laptops, or smaller hand-held text messaging and text capturing devices, younger generations who may have never used a manual typewriter will have the opportunity to experience a little piece of history.

In addition, a new exhibition devoted to the motion picture is now located a few steps away from Mitchell’s apartment, providing a cohesive and centrally located tour experience.  Before, guests had to exit the House and cross Crescent Avenue to access the previous movie exhibition.  The new exhibition, The Making of a Film Legend: Gone With the Wind, explores its production and premiere, race and the motion picture, the film depiction of Tara, and Atlanta illustrator and historian Wilbur G. Kurtz’s role as technical advisor to the film.  The exhibition features facsimiles of storyboards and other movie materials, photo opportunities with life-size reproductions of Walter Plunkett’s costume sketches for Scarlett, Rhett, Ashley, and Melanie, and a video documentary.  Highlights of The Making of a Film Legend include the original portrait of Scarlett from the film and the original Tara doorway from the movie set.  A dedicated casting call area provides guests with the opportunity to read from copies of the movie script and act out scenes from the legendary film.

A new retail experience is also available at the updated Margaret Mitchell House.  The museum shop has been relocated and refreshed, providing guests with the opportunity to shop for unique memorabilia and Gone With the Wind collectibles before concluding their visit.

Commercial Row

The Visitors Center is resuming its original name, Commercial Row.  Completed in 1923, Commercial Row provided retail space for numerous businesses, including Jeanne’s Dress Shop, Mary Mobley’s Picture Framing, and Overstreet Shoe Salon.  Today, Commercial Row at the Margaret Mitchell House is dedicated to hosting daytime and evening special event rentals, ongoing Literary Center programs with award-winning authors, and newly introduced school tours and educational programs.

The Literary Center at Margaret Mitchell House

In addition to touring the Margaret Mitchell House, guests can enjoy a variety of on-going programs presented by the Literary Center at the Margaret Mitchell House.  Designed to honor and preserve the legacy of Margaret Mitchell, the Literary Center hosts events with award-winning authors as well as annual adult and youth creative writing classes.  The Literary Center also conducts community initiatives such as The Big Read and Poetry Out Loud, which engage younger generations in reading, writing, and recital. A complete list of Literary Center programs is available at MargaretMitchellHouse.com.

About Margaret Mitchell House

Built on fashionable Peachtree Street in 1899 by Cornelius J. Sheehan, the Margaret Mitchell House was originally a three-story, single-family, Tudor Revival residence.  In 1919, however, the house was moved to the rear of the lot and was converted into a ten-unit apartment building named the Crescent Apartments.  It was while she was living in Apartment No. 1 – which she jokingly called “The Dump” – that Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind.

Seven years after the building was abandoned in 1978, a group of preservationists and other community leaders sought to save and restore the house.  Under the leadership of Executive Director Emeritus Mary Rose Taylor, they founded the Margaret Mitchell House and Mayor Andrew Young designated the building as a city landmark in 1989.

After the house was severely damaged by two fires, the German firm Daimler-Benz supported the purchase and restoration of the landmark building.  The house officially opened to the public in May 1997.  Mitchell’s Apartment No. 1 maintains many original architectural features, including the famous leaded glass window overlooking the desk where she sat while writing the book.

ABOUT THE ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER:

Founded in 1926, the Atlanta History Center is an all-inclusive, thirty-three acre destination featuring the Atlanta History Museum, one of the Southeast’s largest history museums; two historic houses, the 1928 Swan House and the 1860 Tullie Smith Farm; the Centennial Olympic Games Museum; the Kenan Research Center; the Grand Overlook event space; Chick-Fil-A at the Coca-Cola Café, a museum shop, and acres of Historic Gardens with paths and a kid-friendly discovery trail.

In addition, the History Center operates the Margaret Mitchell House.  Located in Midtown Atlanta, the two-acre campus features tours of the apartment where Margaret Mitchell wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gone With the Wind, an exhibition highlighting the life of Margaret Mitchell, a Gone With the Wind movie exhibition, and a museum shop.  For more information on Atlanta History Center offerings, hours of operation, and admission, please call 404.814.4000 or visit AtlantaHistoryCenter.com.