To Kill a Mockingbird - Background and Context

American Civil War

• Occurred 1861 - 1865 between Northern US and Confederate States of America
• Main cause was disagreement over slavery; North wanted to abolish it, and won
• After abolition in Maycomb, there still wasn't equal rights, ie. blacks not entitled to education
• People like Cunninghams blamed end of slavery for the loss of profit/land/status
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The Great Depression (1930s)

• Stock market crash on Black Tuesday (Oct '29) triggered worldwide economic depression
• Lasted from end of 1929 to early 1940s
• To Kill A Mockingbird is set in the 1930's, during The Great Depression (published in the 1960's)
• "Nothing to buy and no money to buy it with" - Scout
• "There was no hurry for there was no where to go" - Scout
• Effected stock market and crop prices
• Avg income dropped by 40% between 1929 - 32
• Wall Street Crash affected country folk (Atticus discusses this with Scout)
• WPA was a work force campaign set up to create jobs to those affected by the Wall Street Crash (Bob Ewell being one of them)
• Atticus explains how "country folk" were affected by the Wall Street Crash, telling Scout that they are indeed poor, despite his occupation
• Bob Ewell worked for the WPA

Roosevelt and the New Deal

• Hebert Hoover = president during Great Depression
• Roosevelt won in 1932
• He began new programmes, shut banks down until they were stable to try and sort out the economy
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Black people in society

• Slavery was abolished in 1865, but still powerless
• Originally brought from Africa (17th - 19th century) as slaves on the fields
• Hung by mobs without trial
• Paid less than whites
• Required to work harder
• Given 'dirty work'
• Hanging of black people was common in 1930s because of KKK
• Laws which allowed discrimination against blacks, such as Jim Crow Laws, made it hard for blacks to stand up
• Whites thought themselves superior to blacks
• Couldn't marry whites
• Had separate schools, churches, football teams and cemeteries
• "I want to know why you bringin' white chillun to nigger church" - Lulu (Cal's friend)
• Tom lost the case purely because of his skin colour; "licked" before he even begins.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

• Founded in 1865
• Fought for Confederate States of America
• White Christian extremists who hated black people and some whites from the North
• Mostly while Anglo-Saxon Protestants
• Anyone who was not part of their cult was inferior
• Infamous for night time meetings when they would wear white and march around, beating up black people in mobs
• In Georgia 1924-25, 135 people were executed
• Reached a peak of 4 million members in the 1920s
• Great Depression stirred numbers (because of crime and division) which reduced their clan to 30 000 by the 1940s.
• In chapter 15, smaller scale KKK behaviour takes place outside the Maycomb jail

Women in society

• Gender inequality
• Women only allowed to vote in 1920s, but not be on the jury
• Only white men were allowed on the jury
• Ms Maudie Atkinson isn't allowed on the jury because she's a woman
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Scottsboro Case (1931)

• Harper Lee may have based TKAM upon the Scottsboro case
• Occurred in 1931, when Harper Lee was 5
• Nine young black men accused of raping two white women on trial
• No medical evidence to show rape
• Almost lynched on way to trial
• Four men sentenced to lifelong imprisonment/ all sentenced to death but one
• The women were found out to be lying later on
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Time of Publishing

• Published in 1960s (written in 1950s)
• Ironic because black people were campaigning for civil rights, with white people changing ways
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