1. Background Notes:
To Kill a Mockingbird By
Harper Lee

2. Author: Nelle Harper Lee
Born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama
Youngest of four children
Loved to read and pursued English literature
Published TKAM in 1960
TKAM won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in
1961
TKAM is one of the most read American
works of all time
She is the youngest of four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Finch Lee.
Harper Lee attended Huntingdon College , studied law at University of Alabama , and studied one year at Oxford University. In the 1950s she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and BOAC in New York City.
In 1957 Miss Lee submitted the manuscript of her novel to the J. B. Lippincott Company. She was told that her novel consisted of a series of short stories strung together, and she was urged to re-write it. For the next two and a half years she re-worked the manuscript with the help of her editor, Tay Hohoff, and in 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird was published, her only published book.
Won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007.

3. Stock market crashes in 1929
The Great Depression lasts from
During the Great Depression, thousands of people relied on charitable organizations for meals and would line up for simple meals often of bread and soup.

4. What is a Depression ?
An economy with high unemployment, falling income, failing business, and declines in production and sales.
In other words…a “broken” economy that needs to be fixed!

5. Causes for the Great Depression
False Prosperity in the 1920’s led to:
Over speculation (investment in a risky business venture)
Oct Stock Market Crash
Banking Crisis
- Most uninsured
- Money runs
Trade Collapse

6. Effects of the Depression on the Common Citizen
Unemployment
- At the height of the depression, 3 out of 10 Americans were jobless.
Poverty
- Millions homeless, hungry, penniless
Injustices committed by the powerful against the powerless
- Unfair pay, working conditions
- Increased racial tensions

7. Author’s place of birth: Monroeville, Alabama --population 7,000
Monroeville Alabama, a city of about 7,000 people in Monroe County, which has about 24,000 people. Monroeville is in southwest Alabama, about halfway between Montgomery and Mobile.
She is the youngest of four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Finch Lee. Harper Lee attended Huntingdon College , studied law at University of Alabama , and studied one year at Oxford University. In the 1950s she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and BOAC in New York City.
In order to concentrate on writing Harper Lee gave up her position with the airline and moved into a cold-water apartment with makeshift furniture. Her father's sudden illness forced her to divide her time between New York and Monroeville, a practice she has continued.
In 1957 Miss Lee submitted the manuscript of her novel to the J. B. Lippincott Company. She was told that her novel consisted of a series of short stories strung together, and she was urged to re-write it. For the next two and a half years she re-worked the manuscript with the help of her editor, Tay Hohoff, and in 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird was published, her only published book.
Author’s place of birth: Monroeville, Alabama --population 7,000

8. The story is set in Maycomb, a fictional city in southern Alabama.
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place from 1933 to 1935, during the Great Depression.
The story is set in Maycomb, a fictional city in southern Alabama.
The story’s setting, Maycomb County, is an isolated rural area, poor and undeveloped. It is slow to respond to change and progress.
Black people receive low wages as field workers and house servants. White farmers are more likely to own land, but their crops are often meager. Trade is slow and they are often poor.

9. Semi-autobiographical details
Scout Finch/Harper Lee, author
Atticus Finch/A.C. Lee – Harper Lee’s attorney father
Maycomb/Monroeville
Tom Robinson trial/William Lett trial

10. Central Topic: Segregation
to separate or set apart from others or from the main body or group; to isolate

11. Write three words that express what you are thinking as you view these pictures.

12. Trial of Walter Lett March, 1934
Accused of raping white woman
Has alibi for time of rape
Found guilty/sentenced to execution
Citizens of Monroe County object
Sentence changed to life imprisonment
Lett dies of TB in 1937

13. Issues in To Kill a Mockingbird
Racism
Prejudice
Social Class Differences
Gossip
Injustice
Mob Mentality
Still issues today…

14. Racism, Prejudice, Survival?