News Release — April 17, 2002

Reconstructing Scarlett: The "Gone With The Wind" Costume Project

The Ransom Center and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum are pleased to welcome Carrie Harrell and Jan Havenor, two of the participants in the extensive project to reconstruct costumes from the motion picture Gone With The Wind.

In January 1986, the Ransom Center contacted Sister Mary Elizabeth Joyce, director of the Fashion Design Department of Incarnate Word College in San Antonio about supervising the reproduction of four gowns worn by Vivien Leigh in the 1939 film Gone With The Wind. Created to last only for the short duration of the filming of the movie, the original gowns, which are part of the David O. Selznick Archive, were deteriorating and too fragile to be displayed. The project began shortly afterward, with two fashion design students, Carrie Harrell and Jan Havenor, being commissioned to do the work.

Harrell and Havenor will provide a lecture and answer questions about the costume reproduction project at 2:00 p.m., April 27, 2002, in the Orientation Theater at the LBJ Library and Museum. The event is free and open to the public.

"From Gutenberg to Gone With The Wind: Treasures from the Ransom Center" is an exhibition of approximately 175 objects from The University of Texas' Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. The objects selected for the exhibition cover the sweep of time from the Middle Ages to the present day and represent all genres housed at the Center—manuscripts, photographs, art, film, and ephemera. The exhibition gives a broad view of the depth of the Ransom Center's collection. This is the first time in the Center's history that all these treasures have been publicly displayed together. The exhibition is free and open the public daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. through April 30, 2002. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum is located at 2313 Red River Street, one block west of I-35 on The University of Texas campus.