Disclaimer (edited): most of what I'm talking about here is from the perspective of higher society white culture in the North and South. There were some differences in the antebellum South, but little that impacts this specific question because as you'll see if you read the full text it tl;dr, I very strongly suspect the subject is apocryphal* (edit). White plantation ladies hosted parties, entertained their peers, lessers, and leaders, and maintained appearances at all cost.

I have several books and magazines from the era that go into excruciating detail on what to do and not do at parties and I can find no mention of this whatsoever. I've checked my etiquette books from that era and after (here are two examples of later era books I checked, because often etiquette books will recommend stopping a practice like that if it's been going on, but no dice), plus a plethora of magazines for anecdotes, stories, etc. I have several years' worth of Harper's and Chautauqua Society magazines, which have lots of slice-of-life articles and social commentary. Nothing.

I suspect this is apocryphal for a few reasons. One, etiquette of the period was more rigid, yes, but more importantly ladies were expected to be social and maintain a level of decorum. For a tiny taste of what I mean, here's a sample from one of my etiquette books covering general etiquette. (Sorry about the terrible quality.) Everything was about making others feel at ease, and indeed, that's the theme in every single book and article of the time. Don't be selfish. There's a famous (and possibly apocryphal) story from the era of a society lady who was choking at a dinner party and, rather than embarrass her host, went into the toilet and quietly died. Very Victorian. Mass lady naps during a party just sounds selfish and anti-Victorian. What if a guest wasn't tired? Shall the hostess sleep while her guest stares at the wallpaper? That's a horrifying concept in 1860.

Point two, why? It wasn't the corsets, I can promise you that, especially pre-1880. White women of any means weren't binding themselves into oblivion that early. The corset was a supportive foundation garment and when properly fitted was not uncomfortable or restrictive at all. And keep in mind that they'd been wearing them their entire lives so they were quite used to it. Corsetry had been an established industry for at least a century and even a woman of modest means could afford a decent one; a well-off socialite could choose from the best silk and spiral steel number on offer. Even when they did get a bit silly and wasp-waisted in the height of the bustle-era, regular ladies weren't torturing themselves en masse. Well, no more than people do with plastic surgery and extreme body modification today. Those were the elite, the Kardashians. People like me could breathe fine. Speaking of me, here's how I know this: this is me in a reproduction 1880s French seam corset that I made using authentic period techniques. I've been making and wearing them for 20+ years. It's very comfortable, I can breathe fine, touch my toes, and everything. It's boned with steel. Here's a new one I'm working on. I've been researching and speaking on this topic for decades, but there's also a well-researched How Stuff Works article that's worth a read if you're interested.

That said, is it possible that, in the sweltering heat of the Deep South, some groups of friends or some families may have done this as a habit? Sure. Maybe Margaret Mitchell's own family had this tradition and she extrapolated it to everyone. I just personally doubt it was an institution throughout the southern states. If it were, I'm shocked I can't find a single mention of it outside one work of historical fiction. Edit: I also perused online articles and Google Books.

Is absence of evidence evidence of absence? Maybe not, but I've got about a thousand sentences telling women not to hum in public and far more on the various uses of vibrators to cure hysteria (and they weren't supposed to talk about that). I've also got actual Victorian pornography, which isn't supposed to exist. But I can't find this.

Tl;dr: I've been pretty immersed in this era for a long time and I've never seen a single mention of this outside one work of historical fiction, plus I can't think of a supporting reason for it to be true.

Edit1: at mod request.

Edit2: A very kind thank you to my anonymous benefactor who gifted me with Reddit gold. It's very nice to be appreciated and you've brightened my day!

Edit3: mod request, moved race/class disclaimer to opening paragraph.

Hello everyone,

If you are a first time visitor, welcome! This thread is trending high right now and getting a lot of attention, but it is important to remember those upvotes represent interest in the question itself, and it can often take time for a good answer to be written. The mission of /r/AskHistorians is to provide users with in-depth and comprehensive responses, and our rules are intended to facilitate that purpose. We remove comments which don't follow them for reasons including unfounded speculation, shallowness, and of course, inaccuracy. Making comments asking about the removed comments simply compounds this issue. So please, before you try your hand at posting, check out the rules, as we don't want to have to warn you further.

Of course, we know that it can be frustrating to come in here from your frontpage or /r/all and see only [removed], but we ask for your patience and understanding. Great content is produced on this subreddit every day though, and we hope that while you wait, you will check out places they are featured, including Twitter, the Sunday Digest, the Monthly "Best Of" feature, and now, Facebook. It is very rare that a decent answer doesn't result in due time, so please do come check back on this thread in a few hours. If you think you might forget, send a Private Message to the Remind-Me bot, and it will ensure you don't!

Finally, while we always appreciate feedback, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with META conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread. Thank you!

In the scene in question, the Mammy character specifically mentions that "well brought up young ladies take naps at parties," although the book Gone With the Wind describes the scene this way:

Afternoon naps were a custom of the country and never were they so necessary as on the all-day parties, beginning in the early morning and culminating in a ball.

So author Margaret Mitchell at least seems to imply that naps were not specific to parties, but a normal daily occurrence that were particularly important on such long days. But the question remains, was this actually a custom of the time period, and would it have happened during a party?

I can find one specific mention of napping at a barbecue in the pre-Civil War South. Susan Bradford Eppes, in her book The Negro of the old South : a bit of period history (1925) offers her memories of life growing up at Pine Hill, her family's Florida plantation. Describing a Fourth of July celebration, she writes (pp. 13-14):

Only second in importance to Christmas was the Fourth of July; always a holiday, it was also a feast day, being celebrated by a "barbecue."...

The form of amusement most popular after dinner was a nap. The day was hot, they had eaten to repletion, and men, women, and children rested in the shady nooks and corners.

This description is not identical to the scene portrayed in the film, but it suggests that the idea of a mid-party nap is at least plausible. She noticeably includes men and children in her description, however, so perhaps this custom was not limited to women. She also does not clarify whether she's writing only about the partygoers or if her description includes the slaves.

Elsewhere in the book she describes a typical summer day and reinforces the idea that afternoon naps were commonplace ("the post-prandial nap is an institution in this summer land") but again does not specify gender or race. Although she does offer a hint in a subsequent paragraph that not everyone on the plantation is napping (p. 22):

The cook has finished her work in the kitchen until supper time, and she and her helpers have all gone home. From the distant laundry comes the subdued murmur of voices, but the only real wide-awake on the scene is Aunt Ginnie, the housekeeper at Pine Hill.

But if trying to ascertain the difference between the napping habits of the wealthy and the slaves, Eppes' work is probably not the best source. Overall, her book actively pushes a romantically nostalgic memory of the Antebellum south, an agenda she makes explicit in her introduction (p. ix), and thus does not likely paint an accurate picture of a plantation slave's experience. (The book contains a chapter titled "The Dark Side of Slavery.")

Further confirmation that afternoon naps were common among (at least some) women in Southern society in this era comes from Sociologist Wilma Dunaway. In her book Women, Work and Family in the Antebellum Mountain South, she touches on the topic of naps while outlining some stark differences in the way pregnant women in particular were treated (p. 241):

Masters denied to enslaved women the prenatal care they afforded to their own wives in the way of nutrients and rest, for owners assigned black women to work during pregnancy that they considered to be too taxing for their own wives and daughters when they were not pregnant... Even when masters espoused a "lighter" workload, their schedule of moderate work and shortened work hours was still too arduous. Southern doctors recommended that affluent pregnant women limit their physical exertion to activities no more strenuous than those conducted "in carriage," and elite women took regular afternoon naps. [emphasis mine]

So regular napping was probably reserved mostly for those of a certain class. The film itself of course does not show the slaves napping. Much the opposite, the black women and children are tasked with preparing the beds and keeping the white women cool during their nap. The nap scene actually highlights some of the film's problematic qualities. Author Stephen Marche references this scene in a recent review of the film:

During a nap before the war, white girls sleep while black girls fan them with peacock feather fans. Whether those black girls have any feelings whatsoever is a matter of the strictest irrelevance to this movie.

In his essay "Gone With the Wind (1939) and the Lost Cause: A Critical View", historian Melvyn Stokes reads the scene as slightly more nuanced:

[A reminder of the reality of child labor] is underlined even more emphatically by the young black girls who are fanning the sleeping white 'belles' on the afternoon of the barbecue at Twelve Oaks. Doubtless reflecting the assumption that whites could not work in the heat, while blacks were used to it, the stereotype is nonetheless challenged by a close-up of one little black girl tiredly stroking her hair.

Just how much the film is endorsing the racist stereotypes it portrays is open to interpretation and is a separate discussion. But possibly problematic details aside, a mid-party nap taken by the white women is within the realm of realistic possibilities in this era.