"To Kill a Mockingbird": Contexts of Production.

In the last weeks I've been reading Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". I've read almost half of the book, but I think it's very important to investigate about the contexts of production and try to make some connections with what I've read, so here I go!


To Kill a Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee and published in 1960. 


Harper Lee's Biography:
Nelle Harper Lee, the youngest of four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch, was raised in Monroeville, Alabama. Nelle, her first name, was "Ellen", her grandmother's name, spelled backward. Her mother was a homemaker; her father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, practiced law and served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. Before A.C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged.

As a child, Lee was a tomboy, a precocious reader, and best friends with her schoolmate and neighbor, the young Truman Capote.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee

Historical Context:

-Economic Depression: After the great 1920s, US went though a hard and long crisis. Many people went to live away from the cities because they didn't have money! This quickly traduced in unemployment and poverty. 

-The Dust Bowl: It was an ecological disaster caused by drought and wind, which made most of the crops in the US to disease. 

-Racial Segregation: In the past, US people made great differences between black and white people. Blacks were discriminated and had less rights. A great example of this are the Jim Crow Laws, which ruled in the US between 1876 and 1965.