Causes Of The Great Depression In To Kill A Mockingbird

The Great Depression hit the U.S hard during the 1930’s when the stock market crashed in 1929 . It caused a lot of people to go into unemployment. The African Americans were hit the hardest. By 1932, half of the African Americans were unemployed. Even though the U.S was hit with the Great Depression, it affected many other countries. People who had migrated to america to get employed,went back to their home countries. Within Harper Lee’s fictional novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem experience what the Great Depression has done and the effect it caused on Maycomb, Alabama. A tumultuous event such as the Great Depression exacerbated tensions in the novel much like influences of certain conflicts today; this is revealed through the analysis of events in the novel as well as present-day

The broke became poor, the rich struggled and the poor stay poor. The novel quotes ”Not exactly. The Cunninghams are country folks,farmers,and the crash hit them the hardest” (Lee pg 27 Ch 2).People in Maycomb such as the Cunninghams, were hit hard by the crash. They didn't have any money to pay or make their children lunch. They hunted for food,gave goods they grew or possessed as payment. “There was an uneven distribution of income and lower class, poor Americans (about 60% of the population) had been suffering even before the Great Depression hit America (GDP).”People were poor even before the stock market crashed.When it did it affected the poor and African americans most of all. The Great Depression affected many people in more than one way. The novel quotes “As the cunningham had no money to pay a lawyer they simply paid in what they had.(Lee Pg 28 Ch 2)” People were broke and suffering.They couldn't afford to give children money for lunch. They had to hunt or steal to just barely survive.As industries scaled back production, they fired workers, leading