Hollywood fiction shapes plantation museum culture more than historical facts do.

Evidence

Central to this narrative is the link with the movie Gone with the Wind and its mansion, “Tara,” to which each site compares itself favorably, or just compares itself in some way to the narrative presented in that movie: a narrative of love and romance, affluence and success, majesty and pride, dashed away in the crass industrial might of the white north. Some plantations claim to be bigger; others to be almost as big. Some have the same number of columns, or more, or less; others have the same stairway, or the same style, or a different style. Others have similar chairs, or doors, or carpets. Others have something that is vaguely similar to Tara. In Nottoway Castle the tour guide casually remarks, “If you saw Gone with the Wind then you’ll remember the drapes - Scarlett used them to make a dress.” Of course, Georgia has the indisputable claim to authenticity - after all it was there that the events of the film took place - and at Stone Mountain, there is a “Tara” museum, along with the most meticulously researched and laid-out memorabilia. All in all, one could come away with the impression that the fiction which is the film has a reality larger than the facts - it certainly plays a bigger role in shaping the social organization of museum-plantation organization and culture in the South. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1895

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to discussions of how cultural myths overwrite history — paralleling lost-cause narratives in US memory culture.
• SEED: Article angle: how Gone with the Wind functions as an unofficial civil religion for Southern heritage sites, with the fiction literally providing the template for display.
• CANDY: The detail that museums compare column counts and stairways to a fictional mansion is a striking, tweetable image of fiction overtaking history.