Ben Bolt: A Song to Sing the Morning After

"Oh she wept with delight when he gave her a smile and trembled with fear at his frown."

--Scarlett O'Hara, movie version of Gone with the Wind

Right up until the point Rhett walks in the door and things go dramatically down hill, one of my favorite scenes from Gone with the Wind the movie is the "morning after" one, with Scarlett finding herself so giddy over the prior night's turn of events that she spontaneously breaks into song. But even after countless viewings, I must say Scarlett's little ditty still strikes me as both an endearing and odd selection. (Maybe it's just me, but I can't envision Scarlett O'Hara trembling with fear at any man's frown, not even the Devil's himself.)

So because it's a point that intrigues me, today the song in question finds itself as the topic of a blog post. In the scene you can watch below (double-click on the picture to watch the video), Scarlett is singing slightly modified lyrics to Ben Bolt (the original lyrics are "Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile/And trembled with fear at your frown?").  Written first as poem in 1843 by Thomas Dunn English, Ben Bolt was  later arranged into song by composer Nelson Kneass in 1848. It was a tremendously popular song in its day--and quite a sad one, too, for in it the narrator nostalgically mourns the passing of days gone and loved ones lost to his friend, Ben Bolt.  A recording of the complete song is available here and original sheet music here, and full lyrics are after the jump at the end.

From GWTW Videos

Edgar Allen Poe himself described Ben Bolt as possessing a "simplicity of diction and touching truthfulness of narrative." Not bad praise, especially considering Poe and English were bitter rivals. (Things got so intense between the two that Poe eventually sued the Evening Mirror for publishing an article with English's claims that Poe committed forgery.) 

And there you have it--the history behind Scarlett's "morning after" song. Looked at in context, it becomes an even more interesting musical choice for Selznick & Co. to have picked. For as Scarlett jubilantly sings some of the few upbeat lyrics from a song about loss, it's a subtle tell that we all won't get our happy ending here either--Rhett's about to walk in that door, kicking off another round of Butler marital dysfunction and moving us one step closer to the inevitable "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" conclusion. 

Poster of the Week

This oversized poster (40x60) from 1939 was developed by MGM using a rare seven-color format.  You'll note that it (oddly) changes Scarlett's green sprigged dress into a red one and also adds more color to Melanie's dress from the scene of Charles and Scarlett's wedding.

MGM was quite proud of their handiwork on this poster and heralded it in their Gone with the Wind Press Book (used to showcase advertising options to theatre companies and other vendors): 

"Heretofore, similar designs on other pictures were printed in only 1 or 2 colors, with the exception of a 40x60 on "The Wizard of Oz" which was reproduced in 5 colors for the first time. It went over so big with exhibitors that we have put out another equally fine and impressive design. Display one in your advance lobby, on your theatre front, in book stores and public libraries. It's 10 times the size shown here! Price $1.50 each regardless of quantity."  

--excerpted from "Frankly My Dear..." by Herb Bridges

 

Image from moviegoods.com.  Poster information cited from Herb Bridges' "Frankly My Dear..." 

Beyond the Chignon, Part 2: Reconstruction Era Hairstyles

"Scarlett dressed with more than usual care that afternoon for her trip to the store and the lumber yard, wearing the new dull-green changeable taffeta frock that looked lilac in some lights and the new pale-green bonnet, circled about with dark-green plumes.  If only Rhett would let her cut bangs and frizzle them on her forehead, how much better this bonnet would look!  But he had declared that he would shave her whole head if she banged her forelocks."  

 --Gone with the Wind, Chapter LIII

So following our look last week at Civil War hairstyles, this week it's time to tackle Reconstruction Era hairstyles in the second (and final) part of our Beyond the Chignon series. 

As the United States rebuilt from the Civil War and moved into what would be fondly known as the Gilded Age, it's no surprise that hairstyles evolved to match the glitz and occasional excesses of this period that brought us the bustle, Scarlett's trashy friends, and  the much-discussed ostentation of the Butler Mansion. 

But instead of me solely summarizing a couple of popular styles like I did last week, this time I'm happy to hand off some of the description duties to an actual coiffure expert from the period, Mark Campbell, the author of 1867's Self-Instructor in the Art of Hair Work, Dressing Hair, Making Curls, Switches, Braids, and Hair Jewelry of Every Description. After the jump, you'll find a slideshow of what Mr. Campbell assures us are "the latest and most fashionable European and American styles... indispensable to every lady's toilet."  As you'd expect from a book titled The Self-Instructor, the styles come complete with  full instructions, so you if you're yearning to try out the Promenade, the Shepherdess  or  any other fancy hairstyle, you can do so.  You'll find that and more Reconstruction Era hairstyle info below.

Around the World 3.75 Times with Gone with the Wind

Recently I decided to indulge a little bit act very responsibly and buy a June 1936 copy of Gone with the Wind. I was delighted when it arrived in the mail--not only to have the book in hand, but also to find a very nice note from the seller, saying he hoped I enjoyed my book and, as a thank you for my purchase, he had enclosed in several pictures of Margaret Mitchell, the soundtrack to the movie, and a couple newspaper articles about GWTW. (Apparently, to reference Vivien Leigh's other Academy Award winning performance, you can depend on the kindness of strangers.)

I thought I'd share one of the articles I got with my book, as it struck me as pretty cool. It was apparently published to mark the one-year anniversary of the publication of GWTW (so circa summer 1937) and contains some neat facts about the book's popularity, like by that time it had already:

• Gone through 35 printings and sold 1.35 million copies
• Consumed about 88 square miles of paper across all its printings, about four times the size of Manhattan
• Spanned the global 3.75 times (some 92,000 miles) if the pages from all copies were spread end to end
• Used 1,600 tons of paper, enough to fill 90 freight cars in a train 2/3 of a mile long
• Amassed a column 34 inches high if all the copies of the book were stacked vertically in a single pile (yes, the article says inches which I'm about 99.9999% positive is a typo.... 34 inches- impressive!)
• Required 225,000 sheets of 40x28 coated paper to make jacket covers for all copies

The complete article is below for you to read. Unfortunately, what you see is what you get- there's no date or newspaper listed. Just consider it a somewhat mysterious bit of GWTW memorabilia, passed along from a kind stranger. 

The Quotable Rhett Butler: Mrs. Bixby and Her Sons

This week, our Quotable Rhett Butler features the entry that originally gave me the idea for the series. Another line that I ignored for a long time, I actually remember the moment I googled for this one, and my slight dismay at finding it historically inaccurate.  Here it is:

"'Mr. Lincoln, the merciful and just, who cries large tears over Mrs. Bixby's five boys, hasn't any tears to shed about the thousands of Yankees dying at Andersonville,' said Rhett, his mouth twisting."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XVI 

You can find this line at the end of Part Two in the book, when Rhett brings Melanie news about her missing husband. There are two main things to address in the quote above (besides the obvious anti-Lincoln feeling, of course).  

First of all, the allusion to the Bixby letter. Lydia Bixby was a widow from Boston who had allegedly lost her five sons in the Civil War (it will turn out three of them actually survived). At the urge of the Massachusetts governor, Lincoln sent her a condolence letter. Four days later, the letter would be published by The Boston Evening Transcript and become quite  famous. Here's what it said:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,--

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln

From The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

Can you see the problem there? November 1864. At the time this letter was written, Rhett was fighting in the Confederate Army and Scarlett starving at Tara. When Rhett utters this line, in April of 1864 most probably, only one of the Bixby sons was missing from the Union army--because he deserted.

The second interesting aspect of this quote is the reference to the prisoner exchange system or, rather, lack thereof.  Rhett is explaining to Melanie why her husband can't be exchanged out of prison and the blame for that fact is placed squarely on Lincoln. (An interesting tidbit: when that system was still working, Ashley, as a major, would have been worth eight privates. Ashley, worth eight men, I lived to see that day. I've yet to figure out what the status of blockade runners was.)
 

The prisoner exchange system between the Union and the Confederacy had collapsed in the summer of 1863, and though it was indeed suspended by the Lincoln administration, the Confederacy was largely to blame. The South would not recognize black Union soldiers as free men, and acted accordingly. They were sent back into slavery, which for the North was a clear violation of the initial deal. The exchange system was never reestablished, which, as the war progressed, proved to be to the Union's advantage, as the need for new troops was far greater in the South. 

The results of this were horrible--there is no other word no describe them. We will cover the Rock Island Prison in a post soon enough. In the meantime, you can google for the famous Andersonville Prison that Rhett refers to, but we must warn you, just in case you haven't seen them before, that the images are extremely unsettling.

Rhett's Dickering Talents

Since we looked into houses last week and we now have a good idea on how much building such an opulent mansion must have cost Rhett (around $60,000, if the James residence came to $53,000), why not take our obsession curiosity one step further and see how much he actually paid for the land on which the house stood?

So we looked into Atlanta, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by John Hornady (admit it--you all thought I was going to say Peachtree Street, Atlanta, didn't you?), a monograph from 1922 with a wealth of information about the previous century. And we found that the time was actually a very good one for purchases of this kind. After the war, Atlanta went through a recession which also affected land values and so, till roughly 1870, prices were low. 

The closer we came to finding a suitable example from which to extrapolate was this: in 1868, Austin Leyden (remember him?) paid only $4,000 for a property whose front extended 100 feet along Peachtree Street. That same lot had been sold for $5,000 during the war. By contrast, in 1882 when the city was back on its feet, 60 feet of land in the block with the Governor's Mansion, where the Butler Mansion stood, sold for $10,200.

But let's allow that the lots near Leyden house could have been more expensive in 1868, since the land for the Governor's Mansion was close to $10,000 even then. Let's say Rhett paid somewhere around $70,000 for both the land and building the house. What sum would that amount to today? Eh, a mere $1,114,521.

Blueprints for the Butler Mansion: The Winner

Well, it's Monday somewhere on the globe.  Due to the fact Bugsie was so clumsy as to accidentally close the poll earlier than she was supposed to, and since one house was far, far ahead of the other two contestants anyway, we think we can declare a winner. 

Here it is in all its glory, the house that has the dubious honor of best resembling the Butler Mansion: the James residence, aka the Governor's mansion, with 13 of our 16 votes. 

 Image from ATLhistory.com

 

As a bonus, an image of the Butler mansion as depicted in Gone with the Wind, the movie, where you can see the similarities between it and our winner.

Well, this has been a very fun series for us to write and we hope you enjoyed it as well. Thanks for voting!