Historical Context

Harper Lee’s historic novel To Kill a Mockingbird conveyed and expressed themes from America’s unhonourable and racist past, sprawling it into her works and defying mediocrity. This section of the wiki page explores the historical context of her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, starting from pre-novel (1920’s) to explore the developing racial, political and social situations prior to the novel ,through to during the novel (1930’s).

The Roaring 20’s

To most Americans, the fumble of events during the first decade didn’t seem to slow down the economy and general society but rather, speed up during the post-war years. The nation was on the move. Powered by the popularized Model T Ford automobiles and connected by the ever growing network of roads spanning from city to countryside, many rural Americans began to desert their country lifestyle and flock to the big cities. Flooded with cash and a booming stock market, many younger intelligent Americans were able to embrace a wealthier, luxurious – the popularization and implementation of the American dream.

New cultures arose such as the trendy flapper girl look on girls and boys bought cars with flapper seats, talked of ‘free love’, smoked cigarettes and went to nightclubs to dance to ‘hot jazz’.

Social attitudes of the 20’s

Impacts of prohibition (of alcoholic beverages)

Following the introduction of the eighteenth amendment, the Volstead act was enforced to support it. Such precautions were necessary in such areas as many americans had found subversive ways to obtain the illegal beverage. It was not only able to be prescribed at doctor’s clinics (as were a plethora of other drugs) but new techniques of developing the substance gave anybody the skill to brew their own through contraband set ups in people’s residencies which only increased the amount of alcohol in circulation and the transport of liquor nationwide.

The prohibition of alcohol also changed the public’s approach to alcohol and their social habits related to alcohol. Most men and women would go to speakeasies which, unlike saloons which were restricted to men, were welcoming of both genders. The privileged and wealthy usually drank at home including the president at the time, Warring G. Harding who eventually turned the white house into his own private alcoholic watering hole.

By 1925, opposition to prohibition was already widespread . popular newspapers and magazines such as Collier’s spoke greatly against it. The law that inspired and hyped many law-breaking actions had even come under scrutiny of President Herbert Hoover who described prohibition as “ a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far reaching in purpose”. The social experiment lasted till 1933 when his successor, president Roosevelt saw its repeal.

Metro-Booming

Depicted clearly by the prohibition era, America was no longer the great nation built up by small towns and simple living – which the prohibition was aiming to achieve. A 1920’s census actually showed that more americans were living in cities or towns with a population exceeding 2500 than people that lived in rural areas. A driving factor to the large rise in city population was the heavy fluctuation of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. By 1921, congress had passed a a ‘quota act’ that had banned essentially all immigration from Europe and Asia that limited emigration any one nation to no more that 3% of their population living in the United States in 1910. However, the ban did not include southern and Central America, therefore Mexican immigration swelled during these times.

KKK – Reborn

The anti-immigration acts had also led to the rebirth of the supremacist, Civil war developed movement known as the Ku Klux Klan. Originally outlawed by a civil rights statute in 1871, the movement rekindled in the southern state of Georgia in 1915 although much more focused on patriotism. While still remaining loyal to their deep rooted hatred toward African Americans, the modern Klan had expanded their spectrum due to the immigration and had now included all non-whites, Catholics and Jews ; all populations had increased due to the immigration. Certain Klan groups denounced drinking, birth control, women’s suffrage and the teaching of scientific theories such as evolution.

With this new ideology gaining massive popularity, adding to their fame was the alleged popularity of the fear of communists, anarchists and socialists embedding in American society, in addition to the large population shift of African Americans from the south to the north and Midwest during WW1. This was unlike the old Klan which centralized their focus on the confederate south.

Cultural movements of the 1920’s

The Harlem renaissance

While the lynchings were happening in the south, many African americans left the rural south in search for a better life in the north, predominantly New York. Harlem, a quiet suburb in New York became a cultural mecca for the black population immigrating from the south. Newcomers would be supported by many civic groups and chapters of the Urban League and they would spend most of their income actually nurturing the black community itself, creating black educated middle class and the ideology of the independent normal black spirit. Many intellectuals such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida Wells-Barnett were raised in these communities and it was here that the Harlem renaissance had bloomed. Although not an organized movement or cause, the idea was taken from Du Bois and his works suggesting that Black Americans would only gain equality through the acceptance and acquiring of greater awareness of their own cultural ancestry and heritage.

The Great Depression (30’s)

Agriculture/Business

Though the 1920’s were a decade of great wealth and prosperity for some, pockets of powerty still existed. Most people were poor and this was expecially true in the case of many non-white people and agricultural workers with over 60% of amercians earning les than $2000 per year.Farm workers were buffeted due to an economic downturn following following WW1. While the war had increased the demand for agricultural production, many continued to produce just as much as they did during the war. as a result, there was a drastic oversupply of crops causing prices to plummet. A bushel of corn cost $1.22 which then sold for just 41 cents the following year. the cost of equipment (farm) also fell but not at the same rate as the income of farmers so the machinery and even the simple tools were drastically expensive relative to the income of farmers. As a temporary solution, many farmers took out loans from the bank to finance their purchases although this only exacerbated the crisis.

However, rather than decreasing production, new and more effective farming techniques only increased crop production. Newer systems of agricultural management, mechanical innovations (eg. Better tractors) and the growing popularity of chemical fertilizers only fed the never ending surplus of crops. This continued undisturbed throughout the century. Due to the disintegrating economy and the rising inflation, surviving became a daily ask and many family run farms and companies simply closed down. Over 13 million acres of cultivated land was simply abandoned and for the first time in American history, the number of farms had decreased.

Farmers urged for federal or state support, but the pleas were simply discarded due to funds. In an attempt to alleviate the crisis, congress was proposed with several farm bills. One of which was called the McNary-Haguen bill. This was designed to reduce and restore the balance between agricultural produce and industrial goods by setting up a government corporation to purchase enough of the crop surplus. Although many successful sounding plans were proposed to congress, President Calvin Coolidge vetoed nearly all of them.

As the number of functioning farms fell, the size of the surviving few increased. By 1930, half of the farms in the United States produced over 90% of the cash crops. Grain farmers predominantly in the Midwest who could afford the land and machinery flourished as well as truck farmers and fruit growers in Florida and California. However, the large farms could not simply rely on machinery alone and required labour. Striving to get it as cheaply as possible, they employed mostly Mexican farmers who moved around season to season. During the 1920’s, over 75% of agricultural workers in California were of Mexican descent.

By 1929 most people were aware of the struggling financial situation befalling the rural farming industry and the non-farming, city sectors of the economy. This boom sparked the need for cars and therefore glass, wood and rubber industries as these were needed to construct the cars. The increase in car numbers also kick-started the growth for suburbia which spurred growth for infrastructure and engineering work.

Many consumers bought their appliances on credit. For example 2/3 of all washing machines, phonographs and pianos were bought on credit. This increase in demand meant that factories became cleaner for more workers. However due to this demand, production rates increased and soon the market was saturated.

The Crash

The oversupply of goods meant that consumer confidence plummeted and this was evident in the stock exchange. Based to the fact that a majority of consumer spending was based on credit, many people are believed to have simply borrowed credit to pay for a stock which was then used as a collateral . over 300 million stocks were carried ‘on margin’ like this. If the share prices fell, then they would be unable to pay off their original credit loans. Therefore, much of this apparent wealth depended on borrowing that could be sustained as long as share prices continued to rise – which in this case, had been rising for too long.

The wall street crash had actually not come unpredicted. 4 years prior to the crash, respected New York Times financial correspondent Alexandar Noyles had spoken about how the market could not keep up rising indefinitely. There were warnings that came in form of strange market activity in September 3 1929 and again on October 4 the market dipped sharply and rose again. His warnings were unheeded.

There were various reason for the crash that occurred in late October.

1. There was a recession that had started in the summer (slowdown in economic activity)

2. The level of borrowing (of credit) could not be sustained by the banks.

3. The federal reserve raised the discount rate from 5 to 6% (discount rate was basically the minimum interest rate used by the federal reserve and various other US banks).

This meant that once the selling had started and the markets were open, the almost non-existent confidence meant that the crash was inevitable. The rise of the dream was over.

Any kind of small investors and sellers were annihilated on the first day of the crash - October 24 - Black Thursday when selling a surging record of 12.9 million shares had flooded the New York Stock Exchange. the common unofficial emergency tactic of buying great blocks of shares implemented by the banks and investment companies only provided a temporary relief. due to the ai of the investment companies, the friday and saturday remained relatively stable until the carnage swelled once more on the following Monday and Tuesday when the selling had reached its peak on October 29 - black tuesday when over 6 million shares were sold or traded and most of the large investor’s great amounts of cash disappeared in seconds before their eyes. stock prices were declined more than 10%. On october 30, wall street was described by the new york times as “a street of vanished hopes, of curiosity, silent apprehension and a sort of paralysed hypnosis”.

By the end of 1929, the stock exchange had lost over $15 billion dollars in lost purchases. The effects of the crash hit swift and strong on the wider economy while the national economy was thrown into an economic “tailspin”. Larger companies with purchases still in the market suffered innumerable losses and therefore declined most investments. Millions of smaller businesses, factories and banks shut down due to the high costs of operating and being unable to pay their workers. The purchases on imported products dropped from 4.4 billion to only over 1.3 billion by 1932.

Daily life in the 1930’s

As more and more factories shut down and the amount of goods dropped, the amount of labourers fell with it. Although the unemployment rate was already at a constant average of 3.2%, it rose dramatically to 8.7% in 1930, 15.9% in 1931, 21.7% in 1932 and peaked at 29.9% the following year. This devastating loss of labour became one of the most prominent issues during this time.

Dust bowl

Although the entire economy was undoubtedly damaged by the crash, the agricultural sector was hit the hardest. As in the past decade, over-production had caused a great deflation in price added to the dwindling commodity prices caused the prices to drop further.eg. the production of wheat was 35 million times higher in 1930 than in 1929. by 1930, the income o farmers had become almost non-existent. this didn’t help pay off their debt from buying machinery and chemical equipment that they used to increase crops produced. This chain of events caused farms to close down in the hundreds.

This crisis hit hard particularly in the great plains (midwest). in 1931 a great drought struck and due to the fact that there were strong winds and no more crops to hold down the topsoil, the winds caused massive “black blizzards” to blow across America on the over grazed, overplowed lands. throughout the 1930’s, a 150000 square mile region of the midwest, known as the dust bowl would suffer from the effect of the drought more than most areas.