To Kill a Mockingbird

1
To Kill a Mockingbird

• Understanding the Historical Context of the Novel

2
The Great Depression
3
The Roaring 20s

• The new concept of credit
• People were buying
• Automobiles
• Appliances
• Clothes
• Fun times reigned
• Dancing
• Flappers
• Drinking

4
Why was this bad?

• Credit system
• People didnt really have the money they were
  spending
• WWI
• The U.S. was a major credit loaner to other
  nations in need
• Many of these nations could not pay us back

5
1929-1939

• Stock market crash
• Didnt realize the effect it would have
• No money to replenish what was borrowed

Many found being broke humiliating.
6
President Hoover

• Herbert Hoover was president at the start
• Philosophy Well make it!
• What He Did Nothing
• The poor were looking for help and no ideas on
  how to correct or help were coming

7
What about the people?

• Farmers were already feeling the effects
• Prices of crops went down
• Many farms foreclosed
• People could not afford luxuries
• Factories shut down
• Businesses went out
• Banks could not pay out money
• People could not pay their taxes
• Schools shut down due to lack of funds
• Many families became homeless and had to live in
  shanties

8
(No Transcript)
9
Many waited in unemployment lines hoping for a
job.
10
People in cities would wait in line for bread to
bring to their family.
11
Some families were forced to relocate because
they had no money.
12
A drought in the South lead to dust storms that
destroyed crops.
The Dust Bowl
13
The South Was Buried

• Crops turned to dustNo food to be sent out
• Homes buried
• Fields blown away
• South in state of emergency
• Dust Bowl the 1 weather crisis of the 20th
  century

14
(No Transcript)
15
Two Families During the Depression
16
A Farm Foreclosure
17
Some families tried to make money by selling
useful crafts like baskets.
18
FDR

• When he was inaugurated unemployment had
  increased by 7 million
• Poor sections (like Harlem) had 50 of the
  population unemployed
• Instated the New Deal-began to bring the
  economy back

19
To Kill a Mockingbird
20
Major Historical Happenings...

• Jim Crow Laws
• Scottsboro Trials
• Recovering from the Great Depression
• Racial Injustice
• Poor South

21
Jim Crow Laws

• After the American Civil War most states in the
  South passed anti-African American legislation.
  These became known as Jim Crow laws.
• These laws included segregation in
• Schools -- Hospitals
• Theaters -- Water fountains
• Restaurants
• Hotels
• Public transportation
• Some states forbid inter-racial marriages

22

• These laws were instituted in 1896 and were not
  abolished until the late 1950s (even then still
  not completely).

23
Scottsboro Boys Trial

• 9 young African-American men (13-20) accused of
  raping 2 white girls in 1931
• Immediately sentenced to death
• Trials went on for nearly 15 years before all the
  men were dismissed

24

• Started on a train bound for Memphis
• Several white men boarded and picked a fight with
  the black men
• Whites were forced off train by the 12 black men.
  The white men reported the the black men had
  raped two white girls on the train to authorities
• They were immediately arrested and tried in front
  of an all-white jury.

25
The trials caused a huge uproar amongst the black
community.
26
Harper Lee
27

• Wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960
• Based the story on her life growing up in
  Monroeville, Alabamathe events of the 50s had a
  major impact on Lees life and was the influence
  for the novel
• TKAM was the only novel she ever wrote

28

• The character of Dill, Scout and Jems playmate
  in the novel was based upon Lees actual
  neighbor, Truman Capote
• Capote is famous for amongst other things, In
  Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffanys.

29

• In 1962 the novel was turned into a film starring
  Gregory Peck.
• It received a humanitarian award and several
  Academy Award nominations

30
The End