Margaret Mitchell: Reporter

by Margaret Mitchell, Patrick Allen (Editor)

The sixty-four columns in Margaret Reporter present a vivid portrait of a lively, far-ranging mind and an insightful observer well on the way to her full literary prowess long before the world even knew her name. More than a decade before Margaret Mitchell the novelist conceived the immortal fictive world of Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell the reporter was pounding the real-life streets of her native Atlanta in search of the who, what, when, and where of her popular columns in the Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine. Defying convention, the recent debutante took the early morning streetcar to the spittoon-filled, boisterous offices of her big city newspaper to "hunt and peck" on an old Underwood typewriter as one of the first woman columnists at the South's largest newspaper. From 1922 until 1926, Mitchell completed dozens of articles, interviews, sketches, and book reviews, only a handful of which have ever been reprinted. Included here are those pieces singled out by Mitchell as among her favorites, those of which she was most proud.

The tendency to draw parallels between the personae of the real-life Mitchell and her most famous fictional heroine are irresistible. In this collection there are new and poignant insights into Mitchell's own sensibilities, passions, and opinions. Even as an objective reporter, the irrepressible personality of the observer shines through. Taken as a whole, this collection of Mitchell's journalism transcends the simple fact gathering of the reporter's trade to give a portrait of the artist as a young woman and a compelling snapshot at life in the Jazz Age South.

Genres: Journalism, Nonfiction, Biography, History

352 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2000

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell, popularly known as Margaret Mitchell, was an American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her novel, Gone with the Wind, published in 1936. The novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 28 million copies. An American film adaptation, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and received a record-breaking number of Academy Awards.
-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant reporting and brilliant writing!

[Jeane]

So far, this is interesting. It's her newspaper colums from the time of the flappers. Reprinted with no changes, it shows much of what life was like at the time. Very different from today. Her columns on the slang of the time were really amusing. But I am less than hal way thru so we'll see what I think when I finish.

[Steve Poore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the life of Margaret Mitchell. Also those who are interested in the History of Atlanta, and Georgia, will find this book interesting. Five Stars.

[Bulk Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would be a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about life in the 1920s (specifically, in Atlanta, Georgia.) The articles are categorized by subject rather than date; MM interviews high society young ladies, circus performers, prisoners, dissatisfied husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, parents and their children, plus a few book reviews at the end. She reports on matters ranging in importance from life histories of escaped prisoners to current slang (mostly the latter.)

If you are looking to read more writing from Margaret Mitchell, it's a bit disappointing. Though the articles are written by her, they are, for the most part, just summaries of whatever her interviewee said. So it is her writing but not usually her words.

Interesting moments are few and far between, but there were some little gems occasionally. There was a timid husband who wanted children, but his wife hated children and only wanted to party. There was a boy promised by his parents that he would receive a gold watch one day if he didn't smoke, nurses who told children ghost stories about "buggaboos," a man who shot his wife and then attempted to shoot himself - little details that would end up making their way into Gone with the Wind.

There was one interview titled "What Makes the Pretty Girl Pretty?" that started out with, "Ox eyes; an eighteen-inch waist with generous billowings both above and below; a tender, helpless, appealing smile; pale, translucent skin? Oh, no!" And I have to ask: I always thought Scarlett's sixteen-inch waist was an exaggeration and perhaps a historical inaccuracy from a faulty source, but if this is what young women in Atlanta generally aspired toward, I wonder if it came from her surroundings?

In terms of non-GWTW stories, one part made me really sad: a guy who captured animals for P.T. Barnum reports that they would capture elephants by digging a large pit, getting them to fall into it, and then starving the animal until it was too weak to put up a fight. So disturbing. :(

Anyway, this is kind of hard to get through, and I wouldn't say it's a must-read. But I would recommend checking out a few of the articles if you are at all interested about the author's newspaper days (the introduction about how she got the job was pretty good!), or just the 1920s in general.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting time-capsule of society writing in the 1920's, and Mitchell's prose is as sharp as you'd expect. The articles provide a slice-of-life view into wealthy, white Atlanta of the time (coverage of fashion and manners, obsession with Egypt, the changing social roles of women). The way the Confederacy is romanticized kept me at arm's length from the book, but for better or worse that was true of the time and expected from the woman who wrote 'Gone with the Wind.'

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a glimpse into the flapper era, this book is amazing! The lingo is to die for. I found myself sharing snippets with everyone who walked by me while I was reading it. So delightful.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the spunky and vibrant Mitchell in her newspaper days.

[Omed]

great

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven, but not uninteresting, collection of Margaret Mitchell's journalist writing.