Well, that's NYC for you -- anything for a buck. BTW Scarlett O'Hara was apparently modeled on the mother of Theodore Roosevelt. The Civil War was fought out right in TR's NYC household. TR's Southern-born maternal uncles served the Confederacy, while TR's Northern-born father bought his way out of serving in the Union Army so that wouldn't contribute further to his high-strung wife's mental distress by possibly doing injury to any of her relatives in the South. That's one of the things that made TR such a nutcase. He admired his father above anyone else, yet he was ashamed of the old man for shirking military duty during the Civil War. Therefore, TR honored his father's pacifism by winning the Nobel Peace Prize, while simultaneously making up for his father suspected cowardice by being the most enthusiastic warmonger ever to occupy the White House. There's nothing quite as uncivil as a civil war.
Here's what Wikipedia has to say: "Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, the mother of US president Theodore Roosevelt may have been an inspiration for Scarlett O'Hara. Roosevelt biographer David McCullough discovered that Mitchell, as a reporter for The Atlanta Journal, conducted an interview with one of Martha's closest friends and bridesmaid, Evelyn King Williams, then 87. In that interview, she described Martha's physical appearance, beauty, grace, and intelligence in great detail. The similarities between Martha and the Scarlett character are striking."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind>
Carl