Gone?

For part of my research I have begun and finished Margaret Mitchell's Pullitzer prize-winning novel, Gone With the Wind. Some might question why I would consider this research. It is, after all, set much earlier than my novel, in a different area of the Southeast, and absorbed historically with the Civil War issues that my novel is only touching on. Why do I consider it worthwhile research? The attitudes portrayed in the novel are rather telling of the gentility of the South. As Mitchell asserted, the era was over, gone with the wind once Dixie lost her war. But the attitudes towards the genders, predjudices, and societal expectations were not. I learned a great deal about how and why women were viewed the way they were at the time. I don't know which side of the war I would have personally supported had I lived in that era, or what prejudices I would have sported. But it has helped me better understand why ladies did not go out without proper escorts, and various other protocol. It will certainly help to make sure that my novel covers these bases.