U.S.A. Timeline

1
U.S.A. Timeline

• Understanding historical events related to
• To Kill a Mockingbird

2
1850s

• 1852 Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  is published. Focused national attention on the
  cruelties of slavery.
• 1857 Supreme Court ruled on the Dred Scott
  case. African-Americans could not be citizens of
  the U.S.A.
• 1859 The last slave ship arrives in Mobile Bay,
  Alabama

3
1860s

• Abraham Lincoln elected President.
• Civil War 1860-1865
• 1863 The Emancipation Proclamation frees slaves
  in all areas of the U.S.A.
• 1865 13th Amendment Outlaws slavery
• 1866 Ku Klux Klan is founded in Memphis
• 1867 Reconstruction begins
• 1868 14th Amendment ratified Grants
  citizenship to any person born or naturalized
  into the U.S.A.

4
1870s

• 1870 15th Amendment Guaranteed black male
  Americans the right to vote.
• 1877 End of Reconstruction Federal troops
  withdraw from the South and end federal efforts
  to protect the civil rights of African- Americans

5
1880s

• 1881 Public transportation is segregated in the
  South.
• 1882 Lynching begins. 460 Black Americans are
  lynched in the 1880s.

6
1890s

• Literacy tests and understanding tests keep black
  Americans from voting in the South.
• Lynching continues 1111 black Americans are
  lynched in the 1890s.
• 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson Separate but Equal
  facilities are legal, known as Jim Crow Laws.

7
1900 - 1910

• 1901 - Booker T. Washington dines with President
  Roosevelt at the White House causing white
  Americans to become furious over this casual act.
• 1909 NAACP is formed.
• 627 black Americans lynched 1900-1910

8
1910 - 1919

• 1913 Federal segregation begins in work places,
  rest rooms, and lunch rooms.
• 1914-1918 World War I
• 467 black Americans lynched from 1910 -1919

9
1920s

• 19th Amendment gives women the right to vote.
• First radio broadcast.
• Anti-Lynching bill fails in the U.S. Senate
  Lynching continues. 3,436 black Americans are
  lynched between 1882-1950.
• Harlem Renaissance begins creativity in black
  writers, poets, and artists.

10
1920s Continued

• 1929 Herbert Hoover becomes President.
• October 29th Black Tuesday Stock Market crash.
• Hoovervilles and Hoboes become common in the
  U.S.A.

11
1930s

• 3.2 million Americans are out of work.
• 1931- Scottsboro Trial begins. Nine black
  teenagers charged with rape of two white girls
  despite lack of evidence.
• 1932 F.D.R. Franklin Delano Roosevelt becomes
  President pledging a New Deal for America.

12
1930s Cont.

• 1932 - 1933 Worst years of the Great Depression.
• Over 10,000 banks fail.
• 1934 Dust Bowl hurts American farmers.
• 1935 FDR creates jobs through programs like the
  WPA

13
Prices in the 1930s

• Milk 41 cents and Bread 7 cents.
• Gas 10 cents and a car 550.
• House 5,759
• Average Salary 1,368
• Unemployment 25 percent

14
Harper Lees Life

• Grew up in the 1930s in a small southern Alabama
  town.
• Father (Amasa) an attorney and Alabama legislator
• Playmates older brother and neighbor Truman
  Capote
• Passionate reader
• Scottsboro trials covered by local news when Lee
  was 6 years old.