Margaret Mitchell

Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia on November 8, 1900. Her childhood, it seems, was spent in the laps of Civil War veterans, who told her everything about the war except that the Confederates had lost it. She was ten years old before making this discovery.

She attended Smith College, and graduated in 1922.

She is reported to have written Gone With the Wind while bedridden and nursing a broken ankle.

A prestigious newspaper writer as well as an author, Mitchell was killed in 1949 when a drunk driver hit her as she crossed the street with husband John Marsh.