To Kill A Mockingbird—Webquest

You will be using the web and the links provided to research life in the rural Southern U.S. during the 1930s.

“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”

                              —Scout Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird is told through the eyes of Scout, a young girl growing up in the South during the Great Depression.

Typically throughout history people have ranked themselves by how much money they had. During the Great Depression, however, many people lost everything including their homes. Lacking the ability to rank themselves by wealth and possessions, many people turned to identifying themselves by race and social class. To protect their identities and sense of worth (for there is always someone “lower” on the scale) people tended to stay with their social groups and excluded others above and below them.

In the 1930s racism and prejudice were not only widespread socially, but were legalized and supported by federal and state laws. Though this racism existed in all states, it was strongest in the South.

To better understand the book, we must first understand the times and setting.