1. Novel Background
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

2. What is To Kill A Mockingbird ?
Put simply, it is a novel about growing up.
a provincial* novel
provincial = related to a specific area & its culture
the novel presents a view of Southern small-town life during the Great Depression (1930s)
an allegory
allegory = the representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictoral form
the novel reveals the struggle against racial inequality—which was in the foreground of American life during the 1960s civil unrest (when Harper Lee wrote the novel)
What?

3. When? Where? 1930s American Great Depression Maycomb, Alabama
fictional town
based on Harper Lee’s own hometown

4. 1930s Alabama Business & Economy primarily agriculture (cotton)
tenant farmer labor
negatively affected by the Great Depression (78% of the rural population was affected)
Racism continued to cause tension in communities
Lifestyle
towns were often small, organized around farming
residents knew of and about one another
family property and history determined wealth and social status

5. Social Structure Racial Tensions & Inequality
continued belief in white superiority
African-Americans remained in jobs requiring physical labor, working for or under Whites.
African Americans could not vote, were often uneducated, and generally lived in poverty.

6. Social Structure
Racially Based Southern Hierarchy: Jim Crow Laws segregated schools, railroad cars, housing, businesses, hotels, and hospitals

7. Social Structure Socio-Economic Ladder & Social Hierarchy:
a. Southern Blacks: Calpurnia
b. South’s poor whites: “trash” (Ewells) & farmers (Cunninghams) & competed with Blacks for jobs (created tension)
c. “Old Family” Whites Upper Class (though not all had money): Aunt Alexandra (negative aspect) & Atticus Finch (positive embodiment of this code)

8. The Scottsboro Trials Paint Rock, Alabama (a small town)
March 25, 1931
Paint Rock, Alabama (a small town)
A train stopped and 9 young African Men who were aboard were arrested
2 white women were also aboard, 1 was underage and 1 was a known prostitute
The Mann Act prohibited taking a minor across state lines for immoral purposes

9. Compare to Tom Robinson’s trial!
The Scottsboro Trials
To avoid prosecution, the 2 women falsely accused the young men of raping them.
Within one month, 1 of the men was sentenced to death, and trials ensued for the rest.
None of the men were executed, but many remained on death row for many years.
The last of the men was released from prison in 1950.
Compare to Tom Robinson’s trial!