Editing Margaret Mitchell (section)

==Marriage==
{{Quote box
 |quote  = '''''Miss Mitchell, Hostess'''''

Miss Mitchell was hostess at an informal buffet supper last evening at her home on Peachtree road, the occasion complimenting Miss Blanche Neel, of Macon, who is visiting Miss Dorothy Bates.

Spring flowers adorned the laced covered table in the dining room. Miss Neel was gowned in blue Georgette crepe. Miss Mitchell wore pink taffeta. Miss Bates was gowned in blue velvet.

Invited to meet the honor guest were Miss Bates, Miss Virginia Walker, Miss Ethel Tye, Miss Caroline Tye, Miss Helen Turman, Miss Lethea Turman, Miss Frances Ellis, Miss Janet Davis, Miss Lillian Raley, Miss Mary Woolridge, Charles DuPree, William Cantrell, Lieutenant Jack Swarthout, Lieutenant William Gooch, Stephen Mitchell, McDonald Brittain, Harry Hallman, George Northen, Frank Hooper, Walter Whiteman, Frank Stanton, Val Stanton, Charles Belleau, Henry Angel, Berrien Upshaw and Edmond Cooper.

| source = ''The Constitution'', Atlanta, February 2, 1921.
| width  = 20%
| align  = right
}}
Margaret began using the name "Peggy" at  Washington Seminary, and the abbreviated form "Peg" at Smith College, when she found an icon for herself in the mythological winged horse, "[[Pegasus]]", that inspires poets.<ref>Flora, Joseph M., Amber Vogel and Bryan Albin Giemza. ''Southern Writers: a new biographical dictionary'' Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. p. 285. {{ISBN|0-8071-3123-7}}</ref><ref name=reporter>{{cite book |last1=Mitchell |first1=Margaret |first2=Patrick |last2=Allen |title=Margaret Mitchell: reporter |location=Athens, GA |publisher=Hill Street Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-57003-937-9}}</ref>{{rp|xix}} Peggy made her Atlanta society [[debutante|debut]] in the 1920 winter season.<ref name=reporter />{{rp|xix}} In the "gin and jazz style" of the times, she did her "[[Flapper|flapping]]" in the 1920s.<ref name=autogenerated16>Wolfe, Margaret Ripley. ''Daughters of Canaan: a saga of southern women''. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1995. p. 150. {{ISBN|0-8131-0837-3}}</ref>  At a 1921 Atlanta debutante charity ball, she performed an [[Apache (dance)|Apache dance]]. The dance included a kiss with her male partner that shocked Atlanta [[high society (social class)|high society]] and led to her being blacklisted from the [[Junior League]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-13-bk-950-story.html|title=The Belle of Lettres : SOUTHERN DAUGHTER: The Life of Margaret Mitchell, By Darden Asbury Pyron (Oxford University Press: $29.95; 560 pp.)|date=October 13, 1991|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|access-date=February 5, 2022|archive-date=February 5, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220205051629/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-13-bk-950-story.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Young, Elizabeth. ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War''. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. p. 243. {{ISBN|0-226-96087-0}}</ref> The Apache and the [[Tango (dance)|Tango]] were scandalous dances for their elements of eroticism, the latter popularized in a 1921 [[silent film]], [[The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (film)|''The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse'']], that made its lead actor, [[Rudolph Valentino]], a [[sex symbol]] for his ability to Tango.<ref>Groppa, Carlos G. ''The Tango in the United States: a history''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Publishers, 2004. p. 82. {{ISBN|0-7864-1406-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uKmExgEACAAJ |pages=39–40 |title=Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino |isbn=9780374282394 |last1=Leider |first1=Emily Wortis |year=2003 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux }}</ref>

Mitchell was, in her own words, an "unscrupulous flirt". She found herself engaged to five men, but maintained that she neither lied to nor misled any of them.<ref>Mitchell, M., et al, ''A Dynamo Going to Waste: Letters to Allen Edee, 1919–1921'', p. 116-118.</ref> A local gossip columnist, who wrote under the name Polly Peachtree, described Mitchell's love life in a 1922 column:

<blockquote>...she has in her brief life, perhaps, had more men really, truly 'dead in love' with her, more honest-to-goodness suitors than almost any other girl in Atlanta.<ref name=autogenerated16 /></blockquote>

In April 1922, Mitchell was seeing two men almost daily: one was Berrien ("Red") Kinnard Upshaw (March 10, 1901 – January 13, 1949), whom she is thought to have met in 1917 at a dance hosted by the parents of one of her friends, and the other, Upshaw's roommate and friend, John Robert Marsh (October 6, 1895 – March 5, 1952), a copy editor from [[Kentucky]] who worked for the [[Associated Press]].<ref name=autogenerated20>Bartley, N.V., ''The Evolution of Southern Culture'', p. 95-96.</ref><ref name=marsh/>{{rp|37 & 80}} Upshaw was an Atlanta boy, a few months younger than Mitchell, whose family moved to [[Raleigh, North Carolina]] in 1916.<ref name="lost"/>{{rp|16}} In 1919 he was appointed to the [[United States Naval Academy]], but resigned for academic deficiencies on January 5, 1920. He was readmitted in May, then 19 years old, and spent two months at sea before resigning a second time on September 1, 1920.<ref>Washington Government Printing Office (1921), ''Annual Register of the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md'', p. 57, 188, 193 & 204.</ref> Unsuccessful in his educational pursuits and with no job, in 1922 Upshaw earned money bootlegging alcohol out of the Georgia mountains.<ref>Bartley, N.V., ''The Evolution of Southern Culture'', p. 95.</ref>

Although her family disapproved, Peggy and Red married on September 2, 1922; the best man at their wedding was John Marsh, who would become her second husband. The couple resided at the Mitchell home with her father. By December the marriage to Upshaw had dissolved and he left. Mitchell suffered physical and emotional abuse, the result of Upshaw's alcoholism and violent temper. Upshaw agreed to an uncontested divorce after John Marsh gave him a loan and Mitchell agreed not to press assault charges against him.<ref name=autogenerated3 /><ref name=autogenerated20 /><ref>Mitchell, M., et al, ''A Dynamo Going to Waste: Letters to Allen Edee, 1919–1921'', p. 133.</ref> Upshaw and Mitchell were divorced on October 16, 1924.<ref name=reporter />{{rp|xx}}

During this time, Mitchell left the Catholic Church and became an [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalian]].<ref name= franciscan/><ref>{{Cite news|url = https://www.ajc.com/news/local/margaret-mitchell-nephew-leaves-estate-atlanta-archdiocese/30wq9vEws4OlZjxzAhq4qN/#:~:text=The%20bequest%20to%20the%20archdiocese,Catholic%20church%20in%20later%20life.|title = Margaret Mitchell's nephew leaves estate to Atlanta Archdiocese|newspaper = The Atlanta Journal-Constitution|last1 = Poole|first1 = Shelia|access-date = February 6, 2022|archive-date = February 6, 2022|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220206152321/https://www.ajc.com/news/local/margaret-mitchell-nephew-leaves-estate-atlanta-archdiocese/30wq9vEws4OlZjxzAhq4qN/#:~:text=The%20bequest%20to%20the%20archdiocese,Catholic%20church%20in%20later%20life.|url-status = live}}</ref>

On July 4, 1925, 24-year-old Margaret Mitchell and 29-year-old John Marsh were married in the [[Unitarian Universalism|Unitarian-Universalist Church]].<ref name=marsh/>{{rp|125}} The Marshes made their home at the Crescent Apartments in Atlanta, taking occupancy of Apt. 1, which they affectionately named "The Dump" (now the [[Margaret Mitchell House and Museum]]).<ref name=autogenerated15>Brown, E.F., et al., ''Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: a bestseller's odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood'', p. 8.</ref>
[[File:Crescent Apartments, Atlanta, Georgia.jpg|thumb|"The Dump", now the [[Margaret Mitchell House and Museum]]]]