Hi! I’m Scout and I’m the narrator of a book you’re about
to read called To Kill a Mockingbird.
I’m six years old when the novel begins and I grow up A
LOT during the novel. I lived during a period of time called
the Great Depression. Do you know anything about that time
period in American history? If not, you’re about to find out!
This Scavenger Hunt will help you to see what life was like
for a young person like me growing up in America in the
1930s.
You see, I figure that the only way you’ll be able to
understand the stories I’m about to tell about Boo and Tom
Robinson, is if you begin by knowing the setting of To Kill a
Mockingbird. That is, you have to start by understanding the
time and place in which I lived.
What do you think it would be like to grow up in the South
during the 1930s? Scout’s father, Atticus, says that, “You never really
know a person until you walk in his shoes.” In other words, for us to
understand other people and the choices they make, we must walk in
their shoes, and face the same situations and problems they do.
In this scavenger hunt, you will be transported back in time to
the 1930s. Your neighborhood, home, school, daily activities, clothes,
and social life are completely different from anything you are familiar
with in the 2010s. Create your answers (in thorough sentences) in a
Google doc entitled [Your Name] TKaM Scavenger Hunt. Be sure to
number or label the questions!
1. What were the popular forms of entertainment
during this era?
2. What issue dominated politics in the 1930s?
3. Who were the presidents in the 30s and how
are they remembered?
4. In what ways did the Depression impact schools
and education?
5. Why didn’t clothing styles change much during this
time? What were men’s clothes like? Women’s?
6. How did women’s lives change at this time? What
kinds of jobs did they perform?
7. What was radio’s function to the American public at
this time? Why did they listen?
8. How much did a sweater cost? How much
would a similar item cost now?
9. How much did an electric washing machine
cost then? Now?
10. What was life like in the South for whites?
11. What was life like in the South for blacks?
12. How did life for African Americans then differ
from their lives today? List three
comparisons from then to now.
13. What is the Ku Klux Klan?
14. What type of people belonged to the Klan?
15. What is lynching?
16. What types of offenses could cause this type
of punishment?
17. Who were the Scottsboro Boys, and how
did they affect culture at this time?
18. What are Jim Crow laws, and how did they
affect the public at the time?
19. Where was Harper Lee (the female author of
the novel) born?
20. What is Harper Lee’s real (full) name?
21. In what ways does the novel coincide with or
resemble her life?
22. What is her hometown like?
23. When was To Kill a Mockingbird first
published?
24. In what year did To Kill a Mockingbird win the
Pulitzer Prize?