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Home , Amasa Coleman Lee, Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee, Tay Hohoff, Truman Capote

Harper Lee's To Kill a and Jem's father, the attorney Mockingbird begins at the end. The . The local judge novel opens with the adult Jean appoints him to defend a black Louise "Scout" Finch writing, man, Tom Robinson, who is falsely "When he was nearly thirteen, my accused of raping a white woman. brother Jem got his arm badly Atticus suspects he will lose the broken at the elbow." By the time case, but he faces up to the Jem finally gets around to breaking challenge just the same, at one his arm more than 250 pages later point heroically stepping between most readers will have forgotten his client and a lynch mob. they were ever warned. This echoes Along with its twin plot lines, To the way the whole book unfolds-in Kill a Mockingbird has two broad no special hurry, with lifelike themes: tolerance and justice. Lee indirection. Nothing happens all by treats the first through the children's itself. The book's two plots inch fear of their mysterious neighbor. forward along parallel tracks, only converging near the end. She illustrates the second with Atticus's courage in defending The first plot revolves around Robinson to the best of his ability, Arthur "Boo" Radley, who lives in a despite the racial prejudices of their shuttered house down the street small Southern town. from the Finches and is rumored to Tying the stories together is a be some kind of monster. Scout, simple but profound piece of advice Jem, and their next-door neighbor Atticus gives Scout: "You never Dill engage in pranks, trying to really understand a person until you make Boo show himself. consider things from his point of Unexpectedly, Boo reciprocates view.... Until you climb inside of their interest with a series of small his skin and walk around in it." By gifts, until he ultimately steps off the end of the novel, Scout has done his porch and into their lives when exactly that-guessed at the pain not they need him most. only beneath Tom Robinson's skin, The second story concerns Scout but also under that of her neighbor.

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • 1 "Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand."

—Atticus Finch in Former slaves and their children modes of transportation. Laws had little assurance that their post- against miscegenation or "race- Civil War freedoms would stick. mixing" deemed all marriages By the 1890s, a system of laws between white and black people and regulations commonly not only void but illegal. Almost referred to as Jim Crow had as bad as the injustice of Jim Colored Drinking Fountain circa 1939 by Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration/ emerged; by 1910, every state of Crow was the inconsistency with the former Confederacy had which law enforcement applied it. challenging Jim Crow. usual presumption of innocence. upheld this legalized segregation Backtalk would rate a laugh in In January of 1932, the and disenfranchisement. Most one town, and a lynching just over All this anger and fear led to the Supreme Court affirmed seven out scholars believe the term the county line. notorious trials of the "Scottsboro of eight death sentences against the originated around 1830, when a Boys," an ordeal of sensational adult defendants. A central figure Though violence used to white minstrel performer convictions, reversals, and retrials in the case was an Atticus-like subjugate blacks was nothing blackened his face, danced a jig, for nine young African American judge, James E. Horton, a member new, its character changed under and sang the lyrics to the song men accused of raping two white of the Alabama Bar who Jim Crow. Southern white "Jump Jim Crow." At first the women on a train from Tennessee eventually defied public sentiment supremacist groups like the Ku word was synonymous with such to Alabama. The primary to overturn a guilty verdict. terms as black, colored, or Negro, Klux Klan reached a membership testimony came from the older but it later became attached to this of six million. Mob violence was woman, a prostitute trying to Despite these and many more specific arsenal of repressive encouraged. Torture became a avoid prosecution herself. injustices, black Americans found laws. public spectacle. White families ingenious ways to endure and Juries composed exclusively brought their children as resist. Education, religion, and of white men ignored clear During the Jim Crow era, state witnesses to lynchings, and music became their solace and evidence that the women had and local officials instituted vendors hawked the body parts of salvation until, in the organized curfews for blacks and posted victims as souvenirs. Between suffered no injury. As in To political action of the Civil Rights Kill a Mockingbird, a black man "Whites Only" and "Colored" 1889 and 1930, over 3,700 men Movement, Jim Crow's harsh charged with raping a white signs on parks, schools, hotels, and women were reported lynched music finally began to fade. water fountains, restrooms, and all in the , many for woman was not accorded the 2 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ 3 Despite her father's hopes that she came. Lee later researched a book, would become a local attorney like similar to Capote's In Cold her sister Alice, Lee went to New Blood (1966), about a part-time If Nelle Lee ever wanted playground. She talked back to York to pursue her writing. minister in Alexander City, proof that fame has its drawbacks, teachers. She was bored with Alabama, accused of killing five she didn't have to look farther than school and resisted any sort of She spent eight years working odd people for their insurance money her childhood neighbor, Truman conformity. The character of Scout jobs before she finally showed a and later himself murdered by a Capote. After her enormously in To Kill a Mockingbird would manuscript to , an victim's relative. However, she successful first novel, she has lived have liked her. In high school Lee editor at J.B. Lippincott. At this dropped the project in the 1990s. a life as private as Capote's was was fortunate to have a gifted point, it still resembled a string of public. English teacher, Gladys Watson stories more than the novel that In the meantime, To Kill a Burkett, who introduced her to Lee had intended. Under Hohoff's Mockingbird has sold more than Nelle-her first name is her challenging literature and the guidance, two and a half years of thirty million copies in eighteen grandmother's spelled backward- rigors of writing well. Lee loved rewriting followed. When the languages. In 2011, President was born on April 28, 1926, in nineteenth-century British authors novel was finally ready for Obama awarded her the National Monroeville, Alabama. Her best, and once said that her publication, the author opted for Medal of Arts. According to mother, Frances Cunningham ambition was to become "the Jane the name "" on the biographer Charles J. Shields, Lee Finch Lee, was a homemaker. Her Austen of south Alabama." cover, because she didn't want to was unprepared for the amount of father, , be misidentified as "Nellie." personal attention associated with practiced law. Before A.C. Lee Unable to fit in with the sorority writing a bestseller. Ever since, she became a title lawyer, he once she joined at the University of To Kill a Mockingbird was has led a quiet and guardedly defended two black men accused Alabama, she found a second published in 1960 to highly private life. As Sheriff Tate says of of murdering a white storekeeper. home on the campus newspaper. favorable reviews and quickly Boo Radley, "draggin' him with his Both clients, a father and son, were Eventually she became editor-in- climbed the bestseller lists, where shy ways into the limelight-to me, hanged. chief of the Rammer Jammer, a it remained for eighty-eight weeks. that's a sin." So it would be with quarterly humor magazine on In 1961, the novel won the Pulitzer Harper Lee. From her, To Kill a As a child, Harper Lee was an campus. She entered the law Prize. Though fans of the book Mockingbird is gift enough. unruly tomboy. She fought on the school, but she "loathed" it. waited for a second novel, it never

1930’s-1960’s: Harper Lee and Civil Rights

The 1930s The 1940s The 1950s Over 25% of labor force unemployed during Jackie Robinson signs baseball contract Brown vs. Board of Education rules school worst years of the Great Depression. with the Dodgers, 1947. segregation unconstitutional.

Franklin D. Roosevelt wins President Truman ends segregation in refuses to surrender her bus presidency with promise of the military and discrimination in federal seat to a white man in Montgomery, his "New Deal," 1932. hiring. Alabama, 1955.

The Scottsboro Boys trials Harper Lee moves to to Lee accompanies to last from 1931 to 1937. become a writer. as "researchist" for his book Nelle Harper Lee is four . years old when they begin. The Jackie Robinson Story circa 1950 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ 5 Truman Capote Life Photo Archive Nelle Harper Lee and Truman New York to work at becoming a Capote became friends in the early becoming a writer, too. Years of Below: Other Voices Other Rooms 1930s as kindergarteners in menial jobs followed until To Kill Published 1948 Monroeville, Alabama. They lived a Mockingbird was ready for next door to each other: Capote publication. Capote read the In Cold Blood with aunts and uncles, Lee with manuscript and made editorial Published 1966 her parents and three siblings. suggestions. She, in her turn, From the start they loved reading accompanied him to Kansas to and recognized in each other "an help research In Cold Blood. apartness," as Capote later After To Kill a Mockingbird was expressed it. When Lee's father published, Capote resented Lee's gave them an old Underwood success. He could have tried harder , they began writing to dispel baseless rumors that the original stories. Although Capote novel was as much his work as moved to New York City in the hers. Their friendship continued third grade to join his mother and during the and '70s, but stepfather, he returned to Capote's drug and alcohol abuse Monroeville most summers, strained the relationship. Later he eventually providing the would stop publishing and sink inspiration for Dill in To Kill a into self-parody, sponging off high Mockingbird. society and making endless rounds In 1948 Capote published his first of the talk-show circuit. When novel, Other Voices, Other Capote died in 1984, Lee confided Rooms. Around that time, Lee quit to friends that she hadn't heard law school and joined Capote in from him in years. Harper Lee and the Civil Rights The early 1960s The mid-1960s To Kill a Mockingbird Congress passes the Civil published on July 11, 1960. Rights Act of 1964, enforcing the constitutional right to The film follows in 1962 and vote. wins Oscars for best actor, screenwriter, and set design. Malcolm X is assassinated, 1965. Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil rights to delivers I Have a Dream speech on Montgomery, Al Despite rumors of a second August 28, 1963. King wins the Peter Pettus Southern novel, Lee never Nobel Prize in 1964. circa 1965 finishes another book. 6 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ Writing" is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they're quite different from people who must write." Any claims for To Kill a is based upon. Her father's —HARPER LEE Mockingbird as a book that unsuccessful defense of a black changed history could not have man and his son accused of from a 1964 interview seemed more far-fetched one murder, in addition to the winter night in 1958, as Nelle Scottsboro Boys trials and another Harper Lee huddled in her outer- notorious interracial rape case, borough New York apartment helped to shape Lee's budding trying to finesse her unruly, social and sense of a episodic manuscript into some dramatic story. semblance of a cohesive novel. All but drowning in multiple Along with his legal practice, drafts of the same material, Lee Lee's father published and edited suddenly threw open a window newspaper. His regard and scattered five years of work for the written word impacted onto the dirty snow below. Lee's sensibility as surely as his respect for the law. Lee would Did Lee really intend to destroy name her idealized vision of her Lippincott finally published the enlightenment than a mere 18 To Kill a Mockingbird? We'll father after Titus Pomponius book on July 11, 1960, by which ounces of new fiction bearing the never know. Fortunately, in the Atticus, a friend of the Roman time an unprecedented four title To Kill a Mockingbird." next moment, she called her orator Cicero renowned as, national mail-order book clubs editor. J.B. Lippincott's according to Lee, "a wise, learned had already selected it for their Eighty weeks later, the novel still formidable Tay Hohoff promptly and humane man." For a long readers. The first line of the perched on the hardcover bestseller sent her outside to gather all the time, Lee called her work in Washington Post's review echoed list. During that time, it had won pages back-thus rescuing To Kill progress Atticus. This arguably many similar notices that praised the for fiction and a Mockingbird from the slush. marked an improvement over her the novel for its moral impact: the hearts of American readers. first title, , but "A hundred pounds of sermons on One can't help wondering how The novel had its origins in Lee's once she fastened on To Kill a tolerance, or an equal measure of literary history might have been hometown of Monroeville, Mockingbird she did not look invective deploring the lack of it, different had Harper Lee thrown Alabama-the small, Southern back. will weigh far in the scale of her manuscript out the window on town that the fictional Maycomb a slightly windier night.

8 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ 9 of quiet dramatic intensity were which the ’s intent is ideal for the project. preserved, Mr. Foote’s screenplay should be studied as a classic.” At Pakula’s urging, Foote compressed the novel’s three Next, the producers had to find the years into one in order to give perfect set for Maycomb, the film a sense of unity. Alabama. They wanted to film in Lee’s native Monroeville, which As Foote has said, “That between the book’s setting in 1935 decision was very freeing to me. and the shoot in 1961 It gave me a chance to explore had lost much of its architectural the architecture that she had charm. Wisely, the design team To Kill a Mockingbird courtroom scene created for the novel and not feel instead transplanted a street of LOOK Magazine/Cowles Communications Inc. that I was ruining anything or Feb. 26, 1963 shotgun shacks to the studio back tampering with anything lot, and recreated Maycomb in essential.” He also heightened Southern . the intensity of the novel’s social criticism, reflecting the growing The set designers would win momentum of the Civil Rights for their work, The story of bringing To Kill a With Peck on board, the next piece Movement. as would Peck and Foote. Mockingbird to the screen is—as of business was turning the novel Nominations went to actress Mary with any great film adaptation— into a screenplay. Pakula offered In spite of these and other Badham, cinematographer Russell the story of an awful movie trying Harper Lee the chance to write the significant changes, Lee later Harlan, and composer Elmer unsuccessfully to be made. screenplay, but she wasn’t praised Foote’s screenplay: “If Bernstein. The picture itself lost

interested. She pleaded the integrity of a film adaptation only to Lawrence of Arabia. After Universal Studios bought the responsibility to her second novel is measured by the degree to rights to Lee’s novel, they first and, with characteristic humility, offered Rock Hudson the role of said she would welcome an "“ To Kill a Mockingbird is about bigotry.... For me the most beautiful Atticus Finch. But producer Alan experienced screenwriter’s scene is the moment when the Judge drops by to ask Atticus to Pakula didn’t want Hudson for the trimming. take the case in defense of Tom Robinson. Casually put and part; he wanted . When Pakula sent a copy of the When playwright casually answered, the question needed no answer. The judge novel to Peck, the tall, dignified landed the screenplay assignment knew it would not be possible for Atticus to say no. As for Jem and Californian read it in one night instead, all worked out for the best. Scout, they learn a sense of honor from Atticus." and accepted, and the studio Foote’s upbringing in a small —GREGORY PECK agreed to finance the film. Texas town and knack for scenes

10 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ 11 10. Since their mother is dead, 12. What elements of this novel several women-Calpurnia, did you find funny, Miss Maudie, and Aunt memorable, or inspiring? Are 1. Why do you think Harper Lee definition of compromise? Alexandra- function as mother there any characters whose chose as her novel's epigraph What are examples of her figures to Scout and Jem. beliefs or actions impressed or this quote from Charles Lamb: obedience to and defiance of Discuss the ways these three surprised you? Did any events "Lawyers, I suppose, were this principle? women influence Scout's lead you to revisit childhood children once"? growing understanding of memories or see them in a 6. The novel takes place during what it means to be a Southern new light? 2. Why does the adult Scout begin the Great Depression. How do "lady." her narrative with Jem's broken class divisions and family 13. Adult readers may focus so arm and a brief family history? quarrels highlight racial 11.Why does Atticus Finch risk much on the novel's politics tensions in Maycomb? his reputation, his friendships, that they may neglect the 3. How does Boo Radley's past and his career to take Tom coming-of-age story. What history of violence foreshadow 7. Atticus believes that to Robinson's case? Do you think does Scout learn, and how his method of protecting Jem understand life from someone he risks too much by putting does she change in the course and Scout? Does this else's perspective, we must his children in harm's way? of her narrative? aggression make him more, or "walk in his or her shoes." less, of a sympathetic From what other perspectives character? does Scout see her fellow townspeople? 4. How does the town of Maycomb function as a 8. How does Atticus quietly character with its own protest Jim Crow laws even personality, rather than merely before Tom Robinson's trial? as a backdrop for the novel's events? 9. What does Jem learn when Atticus forces him to read to 5. Atticus teaches Scout that Mrs. Dubose as a punishment? compromise is not bending the Why does the lawyer regard law, but "an agreement reached this woman as the "bravest Monroeville, Alabama, Mural depicting To Kill a Mockingbird by mutual consent." Does person" he ever knew? Carol M. Highsmith Archive Scout apply or reject this 2010

12 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ 13 If you'd like to read works by "Christmas to Me." McCalls 89 authors admired by Harper Lee, (December 1961): 63. you might enjoy: "Love-In Other Jane Austen's Mansfield Words." Vogue 137 (April 15, Park (1814) 1961): 64-5.

Truman Capote's The Grass "When Children Discover Harp (1951) America." McCalls 92 (August 1965): 76-9. Mark Twain's Adventures of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is the rare Huckleberry Finn (1885) "Romance and High Adventure." Clearings in the American novel that can be discovered with If you'd like to read other books Thicket: An Alabama Humanities excitement in adolescence and reread into set in the South, you might Reader. Ed. Jerry Elijah Brown. enjoy: adulthood without fear of disappointment. Few Macon, GA: Mercer University Olive Ann Burns's Press, 1985. 13-20. novels so appealingly evoke the daily world of

Cold Sassy Tree (1984) childhood in a way that seems convincing Interviews with Harper Lee 's In the early 1960s, Lee gave many whether you are sixteen or sixty-six. Their Eyes Were Watching interviews before she chose to step God (1937) out of the public eye. One of them

Carson McCullers's was first published in Roy The Heart is a Lonely Newquist's book, Counterpoint, Hunter (1940) another in Rogue magazine. Both can also be found on Jane If you'd like to read other Kansas' To Kill a coming-of-age novels, you might Mockingbird website. enjoy:

Louisa May Alcott's Books about Harper Lee and To Little Women (1868) Kill a Mockingbird

John Knowles's Bloom, Harold, ed. Harper Lee's A Separate Peace (1959) "To Kill a Mockingbird." New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996. Other works by Harper Lee In the 1960s, Lee published three Johnson, Claudia Durst. "To Kill a essays in American magazines, Mockingbird": Threatening which can be read at Jane Boundaries. New York: Twayne, 1994. Kansas' To Kill a Mockingbird website. Lee Shields, Charles J. Mockingbird: A published her fourth essay in Portrait of Harper Lee. New York: 1985, originally presented as a Henry Holt and Co., 2006. paper at the 1983 Alabama Mockingbird History and Heritage Festival. CC-BY-NC 2.0 2010 Creative Commons/TexasEagle 14 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ “Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.... It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent." — HARPER LEE from a 1964 interview

The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress is 1965 as an independent agency for the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. Arts Midwest promotes creativity, nurtures cultural leadership, and engages people in meaningful arts experiences, bringing vitality to Midwest communities and enriching people’s lives. Based in Minneapolis, Arts Midwest connects the arts to audiences throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. One of six non-profit regional arts organizations in the United States, Arts Midwest’s history spans more than 25 years.

Works Cited

Culligan, Glendy. "Listen to That Mockingbird." Rev. of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee., Times Herald 3 July 1960: E6.

Foote, Horton. Interview with Dan Stone for The Big Read. Fall 2005.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

Newquist, Ron. "An Interview with Harper Lee." March 1964. Online Posting. To Kill a Mockingbird and Harper Lee. 9 January 2006.

Spencer, Elizabeth. Interview with Dan Stone for The Big Read. Fall 2005.

Jane Kansas' To Kill a Mockingbird website: http://web.archive.org/web/20070626182320/www.chebucto.ns.ca/culture/HarperLee/index.html

Works Consulted

Chafe, William H., and Raymond Gavins, Robert Korstad, eds. Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South. New York: New Press, 2001.

Shields, Charles J. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2006.

Image Credits Cover Art: John Harvey for Irving Public Library. Page 4: Y ou Can’t Do Business with Hitler, rehearsing for the radio show 1942 part of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress). Page 7: Truman Capote courtesy of LIFE Photo Archive. Page 9: Wilmington, Delaware. Tower Hill School, An elementary grade classroom showing some of the girls writing in notebooks, Office of War Information, Overseas Picture Division, 1944.

This publication is published by: Irving Public Library, 801 W. Irving Blvd., Irving TX, 75060, cityofirving.org/library with the permission of the

National Endowment for the Arts, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Washington D.C. 20506-0001

www.NEABigRead.org July 2014