Hi! I’m Scout and I’m the narrator of a book you’re about to read called To Kill a Mockingbird. I’m six years old when the novel begins and I grow up A LOT during the novel. I lived during a period of time called the Great Depression. Do you know anything about that time period in American history? If not, you’re about to find out! This Scavenger Hunt will help you to see what life was like for a young person like me growing up in America in the 1930s. You see, I figure that the only way you’ll be able to understand the stories I’m about to tell about Boo and Tom Robinson, is if you begin by knowing the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird. That is, you have to start by understanding the time and place in which I lived.

What do you think it would be like to grow up in the South during the 1930s? Scout’s father, Atticus, says that, “You never really know a person until you walk in his shoes.” In other words, for us to understand other people and the choices they make, we must walk in their shoes, and face the same situations and problems they do.

In this scavenger hunt, you will be transported back in time to the 1930s. Your neighborhood, home, school, daily activities, clothes, and social life are completely different from anything you are familiar with in the 2010s. Create your answers (in thorough sentences) in a Google doc entitled [Your Name] TKaM Scavenger Hunt.  Be sure to number or label the questions!

1.  What were the popular forms of entertainment during this era?2.  What issue dominated politics in the 1930s?3.  Who were the presidents in the 30s and how are they remembered?4.  In what ways did the Depression impact schools and education?             

5.  Why didn’t clothing styles change much during this

time?  What were men’s clothes like?  Women’s?

6.  How did women’s lives change at this time?  What

kinds of jobs did they perform?

7.   What was radio’s function to the American public at

this time?  Why did they listen?

8.  How much did a sweater cost?  How much would a similar item cost now?

9.  How much did an electric washing machine cost then?  Now?

10.   What was life like in the South for whites? 

11.  What was life like in the South for blacks?

12.   How did life for African Americans then differ from their lives today?  List three comparisons from then to now.

13.  What is the Ku Klux Klan?

14.  What type of people belonged to the Klan?

 

15.  What is lynching?

16.  What types of offenses could cause this type of punishment?

17.   Who were the Scottsboro Boys, and how did they affect culture at this time?

18.   What are Jim Crow laws, and how did they

affect the public at the time?

19.  Where was Harper Lee (the female author of the novel) born?

20. What is Harper Lee’s real (full) name?21.  In what ways does the novel coincide with or

resemble her life?22.  What is her hometown like?

23. When was To Kill a Mockingbird first

published?

24. In what year did To Kill a Mockingbird win the

Pulitzer Prize?