Introduction
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
You are reading To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
Before we begin reading, we should explore the life of Harper Lee and life
in the Deep South during the 1930's.
The story is based on many troubling issues that occurred in this part of
our country and the early part of the 1900's.
You will need the Harper Lee and the 1930's handout for this area of the
WebQuest.
1. Click on "Documents"
2. Click on "Harper Lee and the 1930's"
3. Print the worksheet out, and begin answering the questions.
Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama on April 28, 1926. She was
the youngest of four children. She attended Huntingdon College, studied law
at the University of Alabama, and one year at Oxford University. She also
worked for Eastern Airlines in New York City.
In order to fulfill her dreams of writing, she soon quit the airline.
In 1960, Lee submitted a series of her own short stories about life in the
South to the J.B. Lippincott Company. To Kill a Mockingbird soon became
best-seller and won her great critical acclaim; including the Pulitzer Prize
for Fiction in 1961. It remains a best seller today and studied in
classrooms across America.
The South was in the Depression years at the time Harper Lee’s To Kill
a Mockingbird was written. Many people had property, but there was no cash
flow. The freed slaves still battled major prejudices during this time.
Most lived in old, run-down shacks and had multiple children in their
homes. Poverty was at a high level during this decade. Many were
sharecroppers with the white landowners. Watermelon and cotton were popular
crops during this time.
Prejudice and segregation was rampant in the early 1900’s. Soon after
To Kill a Mockingbird was written, black protest broke out across the
South. Hatred grew between whites and blacks. Violence erupted and many
blacks were beaten or killed.
Visit the following web sites in order to complete your biography work.
http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/bio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee
http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade30.html
