What was life like in the 1930s in Southern USA?

Question

I am doing summer reading homework on To Kill a Mockingbird. I need to know what life was like in the South during the 1930s. Please help. Thank you.

Answer 1

Life was hard. It was depression and dust bowl in the South and those who _did_
manage to hang on had to hang on hard. Many people lost everything they had, land, crops, houses. There was little cash
money around, most people lived by what they could raise, gardens, chickens, prices were high for store bought goods. Women baked--on wood stoves--they canned vegetables at home. washed clothes by hand, did their own sewing, making most of the clothes their families wore.
The middle class suffered because jobs gave out, factories closed, there were few service jobs such as store clerks, or waitresses. Many middle class were forced to relocate and become part of the labor class which was making it's way to migrant camps in California.

The professional class, doctors, lawyers, engineers certainly downsized, their incomes frequently were cut considerably. Some chose to relocate, others just hunkered down and rode out the hard times.

Answer 2

Of course the 1930s are all about the Great Depression. Not only was the a national unemployment rate of 25% (today it is about 4%) but the programs of the New Deal generally hurt the poor on the South the most, especially the blacks. Farmers (most blacks were share croppers, they farmed the land and then had to share their crops with the people who owned the land) were paid not to grow crops, which meant that they didn't even need sharecroppers on the land, or tenants either. So the poor tenant farmers and share croppers were often kicked off their land and had no place to go. It was an awful time and helped the poor very little.

Answer 3

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RE:
What was life like in the 1930s in Southern USA?
I am doing summer reading homework on To Kill a Mockingbird. I need to know what life was like in the South during the 1930s. Please help. Thank you.

Answer 4

Military intervention of Illegal immigration protects US CITIZENS...illegal immigrants are NOT citizens of the US, so the government is not infringing upon anyone's rights when using border patrol. We are a capitalistic country, which is why there is so much prosperity, as well as poverty. It's up to the individual of what they make of themselves, not up to the government. I will chose to take out college loans and work at a comfortable living, while someone else my age will smoke dope on the couch and work a part-time, minimum wage job. The government should not intervene with any of those choices. Conservatives want the government to have no part in what they do; what they chose to do as a living, how much income their company can make, what someone should spend, etc... Do you realize that those countries you've mentioned at one point were not/are currently not capitalistic? Maybe that's why those countries suffered from human misery?

Answer 5

My mother lived in Alabama during the time of the novel. She said it was pretty accurate.

Answer 6

Poor. Damn poor.