Content Warning: This section reproduces an outdated, offensive racial slur via a quotation.

Even though Atlanta is considered a new city, it is dominated by the social elite who trace their roots to the aristocratic coastal families of Charleston and Savannah. Rhett first uses the expression “Old Guard” to refer to these last standard bearers of antebellum planter society. They function as choric figures throughout the novel and symbolically relate to the theme of Planter Class Assumptions of Dominance.

When faced with the changes that Reconstruction brings, most of the Old Guard refuse to adapt. They cling to outmoded customs and rigid rules of conduct that no longer serve any practical purpose. Scarlett frequently notes the genteel poverty into which these formerly wealthy families have fallen. Some are willing to degrade themselves by opening boarding houses or selling pies, but none wish to dirty their hands by engaging in real commerce. They also don’t want to form business alliances with the Yankees, the carpetbaggers, or the scalawags who have taken over the town.

Members of the Old Guard perceive themselves as superior to the upstart hustlers who have overrun the city. Their scorn is both commercial and moral. Anyone who manages to prosper in the new economy is perceived as crooked.