Margaret Mitchell - Reporter For The Atlanta Journal

Reporter For The Atlanta Journal

While still legally married to Upshaw and needing income for herself, Mitchell got a job writing feature articles for The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine. She received almost no encouragement from her family or "society" to pursue a career in journalism, and had no prior newspaper experience. Medora Field Perkerson, who hired Mitchell said:

There had been some skepticism on the Atlanta Journal Magazine staff when Peggy came to work as a reporter. Debutantes slept late in those days and didn't go in for jobs.

Her first story, Atlanta Girl Sees Italian Revolution, by Margaret Mitchell Upshaw, appeared on December 31, 1922. She wrote on a wide range of topics, from fashions to Confederate generals and King Tut. In an article that appeared on July 1, 1923, Valentino Declares He Isn't a Sheik, she interviewed celebrity actor Rudolph Valentino, referring to him as "Sheik" from his film role. Less thrilled by his looks than his "chief charm", his "low, husky voice with a soft, sibilant accent", she described his face as "swarthy":

His face was swarthy, so brown that his white teeth flashed in startling contrast to his skin; his eyes—tired, bored, but courteous.

Mitchell was quite thrilled when Valentino took her in his arms and carried her inside from the rooftop of the Georgian Terrace Hotel.

Many of her stories were vividly descriptive. In an article titled, Bridesmaid of Eighty-Seven Recalls Mittie Roosevelt's Wedding, she wrote of a white-columned mansion in which lived the last surviving bridesmaid at Theodore Roosevelt's mother's wedding:

The tall white columns glimpsed through the dark green of cedar foliage, the wide veranda encircling the house, the stately silence endangered by the century-old oaks evoke memories of Thomas Nelson Page's On Virginia. The atmosphere of dignity, ease, and courtesy that was the soul of the Old South breathes from this old mansion...

In another article, Georgia's Empress and Women Soldiers, she wrote short sketches of four notable Georgia women. One was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, Rebecca Latimer Felton, a suffragist who held white supremacist views. The other women were: Nancy Hart, Lucy Mathilda Kenny (also known as Private Bill Thompson of the Confederate States Army) and Mary Musgrove. The article generated mail and controversy from her readers. Mitchell received criticism for depicting "strong women who did not fit the accepted standards of femininity."

Mitchell's journalism career, which began in 1922, came to an end less than four years later; her last article appeared on May 9, 1926. Several months after marrying John Marsh, Mitchell quit due an ankle injury that would not heal properly and to become a full-time wife. During the time Mitchell worked for the Atlanta Journal, she wrote 129 feature articles, 85 news stories, and several book reviews.