I had a few thoughts on your Ashley doll and where you could go with it. The doll’s uniform doesn’t seem to exactly match the costumes on screen. Perhaps this is a function of ease of production and cost. Maybe making a uniform for the doll that matches one on screen would be more difficult or more expensive and there is a budget that a doll has to meet in order to be cost effective to produce for a certain price. (I don’t know myself, it is something that could be researched and represents another angle that could be investigated affecting present day perceptions of the Civil War.)
The uniforms that Ashley wears during the film could be researched for accuracy. I have seen, posted on the Web, a discussion of Confederate uniforms available at the end of the war based on photographs of Confederate dead after the fall of the defenses of Petersburg. There are some very knowledgeable people when it comes to origin, condition and availability of specific uniforms and equipment possessed by the troops of both sides during the conflict and the information they can glean from a photograph is nothing short of amazing. Gone With the Wind is a movie and it was produced on a budget. There were probably advisors who could have assisted with accuracy but the producers were probably not as interested in technical fidelity as in telling a story and staying under budget. Consider that if you tried to sword-fight in real life the way they do on stage and in most movies you’d end up bleeding or dead very quickly. Stage and film represent an act in a way that is exciting and drives the plot forward. There is less interest in accuracy than telling a story. Staying under budget may imply obtaining costumes at low cost and within a time constraint so the actors may wear something that looks close enough and is already being made, like uniforms for Confederate veterans or cadets that can be quickly modified to look like a range of military branches and ranks. Or dresses with zippers in the back. (The zipper was apparently invented by Elias Howe in 1851. I'm sure it didn't look like what we think of as a zipper today.) Or, perhaps, borrow costumes from a costume house that includes original uniform parts, like the Berdan Sharpshooter uniform jacket my cousin found in the 1990’s or early 2000’s. The belt buckle form of a rectangle with a curved part on the top center of the buckle seems to have been very popular with fraternal organizations in the late 19
th and early 20
th centuries. (I have a neat one with the Ark of the Covenant. I recognized the Ark of the Covenant from having seen the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark.) Since costumes were re-used, the Gone With the Wind buckle showed up in other movies. You can still get one today if you order it from Hanover Brass. See the url:
Choice of Buckle Backs Click Here
www.hanoverbrass.com
The page may take a while to load, there’s a lot going on with it. This opens up an avenue of research involving uniforms and their accuracy in film and on stage. In addition, the accuracy of weapons and equipment could be investigated. Movie props could be collected and compared with the real thing. This might have the benefit of educating collectors about what is “real” and what is not. Some of those movie props have authentic age and might be hard to distinguish from actual equipment used in the war. Depending on which production used them and screen time, they may be more valuable than the real thing. (I am no expert on anything Civil War, but the low dome of the Phrygian hat pommel on Ashley’s sword looks like it could be Confederate made, an accident?, intentional? I don’t know what I’m talking about?)
In any case, the Ashley doll is just one in a long line of images and artifacts that shape our view of the Civil War and its times. We are where we are today because of a lot of people’s decisions about how to communicate what it was like to live in a time and a place during our country’s history. You can use the doll as a pivot to spin off into hundreds of different directions for further research and perhaps your wife could find her own niche that would complement your interests too.