Tara (plantation)
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Tara is a
fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...
al
plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
in the
state of Georgia Georgia is a state in the Southeastern United States. It borders Tennessee and North Carolina to the north, South Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Florida to the south, and Alabama to the west. Of the 50 U.S. states, Georgia i ...
, in the
historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to oth ...
''
Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Wind ...
'' (
1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...
) by
Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel that was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel ''Gone With the Wind (novel), Gone ...
. In the story, Tara is located from Jonesboro (originally spelled Jonesborough), in Clayton County, on the east side of the Flint River about south of
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
. Mitchell modeled Tara after local plantations and
antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern US ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum architectu ...
establishments, particularly Rural Home, the Clayton County plantation on which her maternal grandmother, Annie Fitzgerald Stephens (1844–1934), the daughter of Irish immigrant Philip Fitzgerald (1798–1880) and his American wife, Eleanor Avaline "Ellen" McGhan (1818–1893), was born and raised. However, the original Rural Home, a two-story wooden structure, was not as palatial and glamorous as the one described in the novel and/or depicted in the 1939 movie ''
Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Wind ...
''.
Twelve Oaks In Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel ''Gone with the Wind'', Twelve Oaks is the plantation home of the Wilkes family in Clayton County, Georgia named for the twelve great oak trees that surround the family mansion in an almost perfect circle. Twelve ...
, a neighboring plantation in the novel, is now the name of many businesses and a high school stadium in nearby Lovejoy, Georgia.


In ''Gone with the Wind''

In ''Gone with the Wind'', Tara was founded by Irish immigrant Gerald O'Hara after he won or one square mile of land from its absentee owner during an all-night poker game. An Irish peasant farmer rather than the merchant his elder brothers (whose emigrations to
Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...
had brought him to Georgia) wanted him to be, Gerald relished the thought of becoming a landed gentleman and gave his mostly wilderness and uncultivated new lands the grandiose name of Tara after the
Hill of Tara The Hill of Tara ( or ) is a hill and ancient ceremonial and burial site near Skryne in County Meath, Ireland. Tradition identifies the hill as the inauguration place and seat of the High Kings of Ireland; it also appears in Irish mythology. ...
, once the capital of the High King of ancient Ireland. He borrowed money from his brothers and bankers to buy slaves and turned the farm into a very successful cotton plantation. Gerald realized that the manor house needed a feminine touch and domestic servants. Consulting with his valet, Pork, whom he had won in a card game, he was told, "whut you needs is a wife, and a wife whut has got plen'y of house niggers." So Gerald set off to Savannah to look for a wife meeting this qualification. At 43, Gerald married the 15-year-old Ellen Robillard, a wealthy Savannah-born girl of French descent, receiving as dowry twenty slaves (including Mammy, Ellen's nurse, who became nurse to Ellen's daughters and grandchildren as well). His young bride took a very real interest in the management of the plantation, being in some ways a more hands-on manager than her husband. With the injection of her dowry money and the rise of cotton prices, Tara grew to a plantation of more than and more than 100
slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
by the dawn of the Civil War. In the first quarter of the novel, the O'Haras are enthusiastically partisan in support of the Confederacy. Nevertheless, even before the tide has turned irreversibly against the Confederacy following Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the plantation (along with the other great land-holdings in the county) has already suffered major deprivation because of the war and has descended into disrepair. Shortages caused by the Union
blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are ...
and the Confederate requisitioning of supplies and slaves have turned the home from a house of plenty to one of mere subsistence, while the inability to sell their cotton to England has also greatly diminished the family's once-lavish income and lifestyle. The arrival of Sherman's troops in Clayton County terrifies those slaves who have not already departed or been conscripted into the labor force by the Confederacy. By the time Union troops arrive at Tara, only the house slaves remain. Unlike the homes of most of the O'Haras' neighbors, Tara is spared the torch during the Union's Scorched Earth Policy. The life-threatening illness, from typhoid, of Ellen O'Hara and her younger daughters, Suellen and Carreen, causes Gerald to stand firm in the doorway of his house, "as if he had an army behind him rather than before him", and earns the sympathy of a Union officer who orders his surgeon to treat the O'Hara women with
laudanum Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (''Papaver somniferum'') in alcohol (ethanol). Reddish-br ...
and
quinine Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to ''Plasmodium falciparum'' that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal leg ...
. The officer commandeers the house for use as a Union field headquarters, but as a courtesy, it is spared. However, movable items of value (including Ellen's rosary, pictures, and china) are confiscated (or stolen), and larger items are vandalized by the withdrawing Union troops. Mammy hides the family silver in the well. The army also chops down the trees surrounding the home, destroys the outbuildings, uses much of the fencing for firewood, slaughters the livestock, and pillages the vegetable gardens and fruit orchards for its own use. The most expensive blow comes when the troops torch more than $158,331 worth of baled cotton (in 2014 currency ). (The O'Haras had been unable to sell the cotton to English merchants, owing to the blockade, and thus it was still awaiting transport.) Upon the army's withdrawal, the family and their loyal remaining slaves are left with a looted and dilapidated house, a ruined farm with no stock, work animals, or farm equipment, no food and no means to produce food. They are indigent and soon starving. Ellen O'Hara dies soon after the Union evacuation, and her widowed oldest daughter Scarlett returns a day later, initial delight at finding the house still standing soon turning to despair at its ruination. The loss of his wife, combined with hopelessness, poverty, age, and an increasing reliance on whiskey (when it is available) is destroying Gerald O'Hara's sanity, leaving him a demented echo of his former self. The plantation and house continue to be visited by both rebel and Union troops throughout the war, both sides taking any remnants of food and items of value left to the family. Scarlett, however, leads her complaining sister Suellen, and semi-stunned and emotionally numb sister Carreen, and the house slaves (all unaccustomed to hard manual labor), in harvesting the remaining cotton plants. She manages to salvage a few hundred pounds of the crop (enough to trade for food, perhaps) but sees her labor rendered useless when a small detachment of Union troops finds the cotton in a slave cabin and sets it ablaze. When one of the soldiers is prevented, by his commanding officer, from taking a gilded sword that once belonged to Scarlett's long-dead father-in-law and intended for her little boy Wade Hamilton (the officer is himself a veteran of the same campaigns as the sword's former owner), the thwarted Yankee soldier expresses his indignation by secretly setting a wing of the house on fire as the Yankees are leaving. The family – which at this point, includes the convalescent Melanie Wilkes, Scarlett's sister-in-law by her marriage to her first husband (Melanie's dead brother Charles Hamilton) – extinguishes the flames before they can spread, but the mansion is further damaged. When a Union deserter attempts to rob and rape Scarlett, she kills him in self-defense and vengeance. With the tiny windfall of money he was carrying, and with his horse and the aid of Will Benteen, a Confederate private and amputee nursed through a near-fatal fever by the O'Haras, the land is planted once again, on a subsistence scale. The family is able to eke out a very meager living, leaving them constantly hungry but at least not homeless or starving. Peace returns after the war, but not prosperity. Scarlett manages to save Tara from being seized and the family from dispossession only by deceitfully marrying her sister Suellen's fiancé, Frank Kennedy, and using his savings to pay the $300 in taxes levied on the place. Though Scarlett returns to Atlanta where her fortunes rise as she takes over and expands her second husband Frank's business interests, she shares her new wealth with Tara. Tara never achieves anything like its antebellum grandeur, but it does become self-supporting as a "two horse" farm. While far from rich, the O'Haras are at least in better condition than most of their neighbors. While Scarlett is in Atlanta, Suellen, the sister whom Scarlett's husband truly loved, conspires with the hated
carpetbaggers In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical pejorative used by Southerners to describe allegedly opportunistic or disruptive Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War and were per ...
and
scalawags In United States history, scalawag (sometimes spelled scallawag or scallywag) was a pejorative slur referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the American Civil War. As with the ...
to defraud the victorious United States government of $150,000 by having her senile father swear an oath that his family was pro-Union during the war; therefore, the cotton burned and the damages done to the place were not justified. The plan backfires and leads to the accidental death of Gerald. It also leads to the social ostracism of Suellen by her neighbors and even some of her relatives, though ironically it increases her worth (slightly) in the eyes of her pragmatic sister Scarlett, who privately believes the plan was brilliant. In 1868, Scarlett marries
Rhett Butler Rhett Butler (born 1828) is a fictional character in the 1936 novel ''Gone with the Wind (novel), Gone with the Wind'' by Margaret Mitchell and in the 1939 film adaptation Gone with the Wind (film), of the same name. It is one of Clark Gable's ...
, a wealthy gambler and profiteer. Rhett has Tara restored the way it was before the war, but the couple also have a house built in Atlanta. Though Scarlett resides in Atlanta, she considers Tara her true home. The house is restored and refurnished, the outbuildings are rebuilt, the fields are again stocked with cattle, turkeys, and horses, and the land is again planted with cotton (raised now by poor white and free black sharecroppers). By the end of the novel, Tara has come to resemble, as closely as it can, the beautiful red-earthed plantation it was before the war. Scarlett, however, is unable to find peace or happiness. Though she has come back from defeat and starvation to become one of the wealthiest women in the South and is even far richer and more spoiled than she ever expected to be, she feels miserable and empty. Most of this is due to, first, her hopeless love for Ashley Wilkes, and later her loss of Rhett's love (unfortunately, after realizing Rhett is the one she loves), and the death of their daughter Bonnie (and perhaps her loss of Melanie's friendship through her death, as well). After Rhett leaves Scarlett, she returns to Tara, declaring that she will win back his love one day. Many critics state that Tara ultimately symbolizes Scarlett's spirit or character. Initially, it is a thing of pompous but shallow beauty, then a place of desolation but nevertheless still standing when the neighboring homes are not, and finally as beautiful as ever but bereft of life and happiness.


In ''Rhett Butler's People''

In the 2007 novel by Donald McCaig, '' Rhett Butler's People'', Tara stays virtually the same as in ''Gone With the Wind.'' However, at the end of this novel, which was the authorized
Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel that was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel ''Gone With the Wind (novel), Gone ...
estate sequel to ''Gone With the Wind'', the crazed Isaiah Watling sets fire to the main staircase of the mansion, which burns to the ground.


The house

When Gerald first takes possession of the property, he and his slave valet Pork (also acquired by Gerald in a poker game) inhabit the four-room overseer's house that remained standing after the former mansion burned down. The enslaved population builds Tara on the site of the old house and add to it as is necessary. It is a clumsy sprawling building of whitewashed brick and timber "built according to no architectural plan whatever, with extra rooms added where and when it seemed convenient". Its charm comes from Ellen's grace and sophistication. According to the description in the novel, the house has at least two hallways, a cellar, front and back stairs, and an attic.


Movie set

For the 1939 motion picture, the home was constructed by
art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...
Lyle Wheeler. After filming concluded, the
façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...
of Tara sat on the Forty Acres backlot owned by
RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...
and then
Desilu Productions Desilu Productions, Inc. () was an American television production company founded and co-owned by husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. The company is best known for shows such as ''I Love Lucy'', '' The Lucy Show'', '' Mannix'', '' The ...
. The Tara house façade looks very similar to the home of Barbara Stanwyck's character Victoria Barkley in the ABC series '' The Big Valley''. That set was built in 1947 on the Republic Studios lot in Encino for the John Wayne movie '' The Fighting Kentuckian''. In 1959, Southern Attractions, Inc. purchased the Tara façade, which was dismantled and shipped to Georgia with plans to relocate it to the Atlanta area as a tourist attraction. Producer
David O. Selznick David O. Selznick (born David Selznick; May 10, 1902June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and ''Rebecca (1940 film), Rebecca'' (1 ...
commented at the time,
Nothing in Hollywood is permanent. Once photographed, life here is ended. It is almost symbolic of Hollywood. Tara had no rooms inside. It was just a façade. So much of Hollywood is a façade.
However, the Margaret Mitchell estate refused to license anything that sought to capitalize on the novel's fame and popularity, including the movie set, citing Mitchell's dismay at how little it resembled her description in her novel. In 1979, what remained of the set—doorway, windows, shutters, cornice, steps and breezeway to the kitchen, and elements of the kitchen itself—was purchased for $5,000 (~$ in ) by Betty Talmadge, the former wife of former
governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
and U.S. Senator
Herman Talmadge Herman Eugene Talmadge (August 9, 1913 – March 21, 2002) was a U.S. politician who served as governor of Georgia in 1947 and from 1948 to 1955 and as a U.S. senator from Georgia from 1957 to 1981. A Democrat, Talmadge served during a time o ...
. She had the front door of the Tara set restored. After a 1989 exhibit at the
Atlanta History Center The Atlanta History Center is a history museum and research center located in the Buckhead (Atlanta), Buckhead district of Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The Museum was founded in 1926, and has a large campus featuring historic gardens a ...
, she lent it for permanent display at the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum in
Midtown Atlanta Midtown Atlanta, or Midtown for short, is a Urban area, high-density commercial and residential neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The exact geographical extent of the area is ill-defined due to differing definitions used ...
, Georgia. A short time later, K. C. Bassham, an inn owner in Concord, Georgia, agreed to purchase the set from Mrs. Talmadge and actually took possession of a window and shutter from the set. Bassham set up her inn as a period piece and decorated it with reproduction mementos from the film. In spite of the restored front door and
fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...
, she believed that the movie set, which she characterized as "plywood and papier-mâché," was so deteriorated that it could never be resurrected again. Her vision was to cut up the set and sell rectangular sections along with a picture of Tara and a certificate of authenticity. Talmadge eventually decided to keep the Tara set, and it remained in storage at the time of her death in 2005. For years the set was also thought to have existed on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's backlot #2 in Culver City, CA. This urban myth was the result of former MGM tour guides who had been instructed to mislead tourists into thinking that a southern mansion set on backlot #2 was the famed ''Gone with the Wind'' set. In fact, years later an article in the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' chronicled the demolition of the mansion and relied on the false information given by the tour guides. This news report only furthered the confusion over the true whereabouts of the actual Tara set. Now the Tara facade is still located at Talmadge Farms in Lovejoy, Georgia and is being resurrected.


Namesakes

*The section of
US 41 U.S. Route 41, also U.S. Highway 41 (US 41), is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway System, United States Numbered Highway that runs from Miami, Florida, to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Until 1949, the part i ...
and
US 19 U.S. Route 19 or U.S. Highway 19 (US 19) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway in the Eastern United States. Despite encroaching Interstate Highways, the route has remained a long-haul road, connecting the Gulf of Mex ...
from
Interstate 75 Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end in 5, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, traveling from S ...
south through Jonesboro to the Clayton/
Henry Henry may refer to: People and fictional characters * Henry (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters * Henry (surname) * Henry, a stage name of François-Louis Henry (1786–1855), French baritone Arts and entertainmen ...
county line is called Tara Boulevard, in honor of the book and movie, and the placement of the fictitious plantation near the town. The Tara Field airport (located in Henry but once operated by Clayton) was also named for it. It has since been changed to Atlanta Speedway Airport HMP *Country singing legend
Dolly Parton Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actress, and philanthropist, known primarily as a country music, country musician. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton's debut album ...
named her
Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...
mansion Tara. *The Tara Theatre, an art house movie theater in
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
, memorializes the plantation. * Tara High School in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge ( ; , ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It had a population of 227,470 at the 2020 United States census, making it List of municipalities in Louisiana, Louisiana's second-m ...
. *The Tara ceiling fan by Southern Fan Company *Tara from ''True Blood''


References


External links


Jonesboro History SiteTara Restoration Project Facebook Page: "Saving Tara""Saving Tara Video Diaries": Videos About Restoration of the Tara Movie Set
{{Gone with the Wind Fictional farms Gone with the Wind Clayton County, Georgia Henry County, Georgia Fictional houses Fictional buildings and structures originating in literature Fictional elements introduced in 1936