Harper Lee
Guiding Question
 How
does
culture affect
values?
Harper Lee
Born in Monroeville, Alabama
Grew up there during the
depression
school experience influences novel
TKM was published in 1960
Law Plot reflects Lee’s own
childhood growing up in Alabama
Setting
 Time
Period
1930s
 Location
Maycomb,
Alabama
 History
Historical Context of the Novel
 Set
in fictional Maycomb, Alabama
during the Great Depression of the
1930’s
 Stock-market crash of 1929
paralyzed nation’s economy
 In 1933, the height of the
depression, 13 million Americans had
no jobs

depression
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected President
in 1932, basing his campaign on promises to
end the depression
A program, the “New Deal”, created the
CCC(Civilian Conservation Corps), WPA(Works
Progress Administration) and FCA(Farm Credit
Administration)
New Deal marks a turning point in the
nation’s economy
Maycomb’s Community
Dynamics

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
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
Divided town: racially, socially, economically,
religiously
Blacks: Tom Robinson
Working/respected poor: Cunninghams
White trash: Ewells
Upper class whites: Aunt Alexandra
“Down-to-earth folk: Miss Maudie
Religions: all Baptists—blacks & whites have
own churches
“foot-washers”
Symbolism:
“It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”
 The
“mockingbirds”
Tom
 Boo
 Mayella?

Symbolism
The
Mad Dog
Mad Dog
 symbolizes
“Maycomb’s usual disease”:
bigotry, hatred, prejudice, racism

Why Atticus had to shoot?
“deadest shot in Maycomb County”

had to kill with one shot (wounded dog)

symbolizes Atticus taking dead shot at
Maycomb’s Usual Disease

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
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
Don’t judge others
Until you climb into another’s skin and walk
around in it, you don’t know how that person is
or feels.
Personal courage (Atticus, Mrs. Dubose)
Destruction of Innocence: Tom, Boo, Wlater
Cunningham
Coming of Age: Jem & Scout
Compassion
understanding & valuing others
tolerance
Point of View
 First
person, through the eyes of the
main character, Scout Finch
 As an adult, Scout recalls and relates
some events from her childhood,
reflecting upon their meanings and
implications.
Plot
 Action
covers three years in the
childhood of Scout and her older
brother Jem
 Scout recall events which occur over
this time period
 Two major plot strands: the
mysterious Boo Radley and the trial
of Tom Robinson
The Great Depression
&
The Dust Bowl
Created by Chadrenne Blouin
The Great Depression
“The Great Depression (also known as the Great
Slump) was a dramatic, worldwide economic
downturn beginning in some countries as early
as 1928.”
 “The beginning of the Great Depression in the
United States is associated with the stock
market crash on October 29, 1929, known as
Black Tuesday…”
 “…the end is associated with the onset of the
war economy of World War II, beginning around
1939.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_depre
ssion
The Dust Bowl
“The Dust Bowl, or the "dirty thirties", was a
period of horrible dust storms causing major
ecological and agricultural damage to American
and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936
(in some areas until 1940)…”
 “…caused by severe drought coupled with
decades of extensive farming without crop
rotation or other techniques to prevent erosion.”
 “It was a mostly man-made disaster caused
when virgin top soil of the Great Plains was
exposed to deep plowing, killing the natural
grasses - the grasses normally kept the soil in
place and moisture trapped, even during periods
of drought and high winds.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bowl
The Dust Bowl
“However, during the drought of the 1930s, with
the grasses destroyed, the soil dried, turned to
dust, and blew away eastwards and southwards
in large dark clouds.”
 “At times the clouds blackened the sky, reaching
all the way to East Coast cities like New York
and Washington D.C., with much of the soil
deposited in the Atlantic Ocean.”
 “The Dust Bowl consisted of 100 million acres,
centered on the panhandles of Texas,
Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bowl
Hoovervilles

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“A Hooverville was the popular name for a
shantytown…”
“These settlements were often formed in unpleasant
neighborhoods or desolate areas and consisted of
dozens or hundreds of shacks and tents that were
temporary residences of those left unemployed and
homeless by the Depression.”
“People slept in anything from open piano crates to the
ground. …Most people, however, resorted to building
their residences out of boxwood, cardboard, and any
scraps of metal they could find. Some individuals even
lived in water mains.”
“Most of these unemployed residents of the Hoovervilles
begged for food from those who had housing during this
era.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_United_
States
Image: ©
Bettmann/COR
BIS
Date
Photographed
: July 16, 1934
Location
Information:
Seattle,
Washington,
USA
Hooverville in Seattle Original caption: 7/16/1934-Hooverville, a section of Seattle.
Depression Homeless
Stand in Line
The homeless and
unemployed of the
Great Depression wait in
line seeking shelter in
New York.
Image: © Bettmann/CORBIS
Date Photographed: 1930 Location
Information: New York, New York, USA
Family of Coal Miner
Family of an
unemployed coal miner.
Pursglove, on Scott's
Run, West Virginia,
September 1938.
Image: © CORBIS
Photographer: Marion Post
Wolcott Date
Photographed: September 1938
Location Information: Pursglove,
on Scott's run, West Virginia, USA
Image: ©
CORBIS
Date
Photographed:
May 1, 1930
Location
Information:
Chicago,
Illinois, USA
Man in Chicago Shantytown A man reads a newspaper in front of his shack at Chicago
shantytown during the Great Depression. The shantytown's site became the grounds for
the 1933 World's Fair. Illinois, USA.
Image: ©
CORBIS
Date
Photograph
ed: ca.
1930s
Dust Storm A farm about to be enveloped by a dust storm during the great Dust Bowl of
the 1930s.
Boy in Dust Bowl
A young boy
covers his nose
and mouth against
brown sand in the
Dust Bowl.
Image: © Bettmann/CORBIS
Date Photographed: ca.
1930s
Location Information: USA
Migrant Mother by
Dorothea Lange
A poverty-stricken migrant
mother with three young
children gazes off into the
distance. This photograph,
commissioned by the FSA,
came to symbolize the Great
Depression for many
Americans.
Image: © Bettmann/CORBIS
Photographer: Dorothea Lange Date
Photographed: 1936 Location
Information: Nipomo, California, USA
Dust Storm in Texas Panhandle
Image: © CORBIS
Date Photographed: 1935 Location Information: Texas, USA
Image: © CORBIS
Date Photographed: September
1939
Location Information: Kansas,
USA
Farmer in the Dust Bowl A farmer in Kansas during the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s
attempts to work formerly fertile land buried in dust.