harper lee. background information born : nelle harper lee april 28, 1926 monroeville, alabama

Harper Lee

Background Information

• Born : Nelle Harper Lee• April 28, 1926• Monroeville, Alabama

•Mother: Frances Finch•Father: Amasa Lee•Lee was childhood friend of Truman Capote (famous writer)

Truman Capote

• Father and sister were both lawyers.• Harper went to law school.• Quit 6 months before she graduated.• Went to New York to write.• Worked on TKAM from 1957-1960.• Started out as short story.• Won Pulitzer Prize in 1960

• Harper Lee never wrote anything again that was published.

• She never gives interviews or talks about her book.

• Lives in Monroeville, Alabama and New York City

Historical Background of 1930’s and TKAM

•Story set in Maycomb, Alabama, 1930’s

•Depression Time•Stock Market had crashed in

1929•In 1932 13 million people were out of jobs. Farmers lost their

land•Banks stopped making loans.

FDR is President• 1929 – Annual income in South: $372

Other states : $797 People competed for jobs and caused problems between the races.

• FDR becomes President in 1933. (“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”)

• Creates new jobs through government program called New Deal.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Social Problems• Blacks considered second class citizens.• Absolute segregation between blacks

and whites.• Blacks were given menial jobs.• Blacks suffered harsh and brutal

indignities at hands of “superior” whites.

• A white man or woman’s word was never questioned.

Segregation

Segregation cont.

Segregation in Education

Themes of TKAM• Coming of age – growing

up• Racial – black vs. white

“prejudice”• Superstition• Education

Scottsboro Trial

Scottsboro Trials•Famous court case in 1931.•Case inspired Lee’s court case in the book.•Nine black men accused of raping two white women.•Women were prostitutes who hopped train and were arrested.•Yelled rape to take attention off their hopping train.

Scottsboro trial cont. • Several people said men did not

commit crime.• Jury found them guilty.• 8 got death sentence, but all

overturned.• Not released until 1950.• One was shot trying to escape.

Civil Rights Movement• Lee writing during 1950’s when

Civil Rights movement was unfolding.

• Rosa Parks – Dec., 1955: Did not give up seat to white man.

• 1957 – Schools in Little Rock, Arkansas ordered to desegregate (Segregation=separation)

Rosa Parks

Civil Rights cont.• 1954 – Brown vs. Board of Education:

Segregation ruled unconstitutional in public schools.

• 1960’s – Martin Luther KingBorn: Jan. 15, 1929Black preacherLed peaceful protest marchesKilled April 4, 1968

Civil Rights cont.• Martin Luther King cont.

- Killed in Memphis, Tenn. - Won Nobel Peace Prize

1964

Martin Luther King

Actors and Actresses – 1930’s

• Marx Brothers• Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers• WC Fields and Margaret Hamilton• Clark Gable• Charlie Chaplin• Shirley Temple

Marx Brothers

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

W.C. Fields and Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton was the original…

Wicked Witch of the West!

Clark Gable – What famous movie was he in?

Gone with the Wind!

Charlie Chaplin

Shirley Temple – The Good Ship Lollypop