To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

(aka TKAM)

Literary Allusions and other reference to terms (Chpt. 1: 1 – 24)

Andrew Jackson and the Creek Nation

• Military hero; 7th president

• commanded a force of combined state militias, Lower Creek and Cherokee to defeat the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend. After the war, by the Treaty of Fort Jackson (August 1814), the general insisted on the Creek ceding more than 20 million acres of land from southern Georgia and central Alabama, taken from the Lower Creek allies as well as the Upper Creek.

Battle of Hastings

• Norman (French) conquer England in 1066 AD

Fur Trapper and Apothecary

Cornwall, England

• Simon Finch comes from Cornwall

Methodists in England

• Religious affiliation of Simon Finch

• Protestant sect begun by John Wesley

John Wesley

• founder of Methodism

• abolitionist

American Civil War

• 1861-1865

• This is what Scout calls “the disturbance between North and South.”

Spittoon

• a receptacle for spit; used for tabacco

Code of Alabama

• Legal code for the state of Alabama

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

• Quote from FDR’s inaugural speech referencing the climate of the country regarding The Great Depression

Collard Patch

• coarse curly-leafed cabbage

Dracula

• Film debuting in 1931 starring Bela Lugosi as Dracula

The Rover Boys

• Written by Edward Stratemeyer (nom de plume: Arthur M. Winfield)

• Popular children’s book series of the early 20th Century

Oliver Optic

• Written by William Taylor Adams (nom de plume: Oliver Optic)

• Fiction books for boys from the 19th Century

Victor Appleton

• Author of Tom Swift (adventure novels)

Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Creator of Tarzan

Merlin

• Wizard from the legends of King Arthur

• Scout refers to Dill as a “pocket Merlin” because of his magical story telling ability and his ability to make characters come alive

Swept Yards• Tradition from West Africa

• Adopted in the south

• These yards have no grass -- because they are swept clean with a broom made of dogwood branches gathered in the woods.

• They don't look like much at first glance. But hidden in their unconscious design are traces of West Africa and the emergence of a hard-won independence.

• The design of these yards -- a church pew under the trees, an old bedspring gate on the hog pen, a clump of irises blooming out of a chimney foundation -- is the evolution of generations of making do and making art out of what others call junk.

Flivver

• cheap automobile

Ancient Beadle

• Minor civic official (although position originated in the church)

• Keeps order

Tuscaloosa: Bryce Hospital

• major Alabama medical site/asylum

Pensacola• city in northern Florida

• Mr. Nathan Radley lives there before he moves back home after his father’s death

The Gray Ghost

• Adventure stories full of mystery and humor from cover to cover. That also teach young boy readers the importance of thinking for themselves and playing fair and square at all times.

Rose Alymer

• A love poem by Walter Landor

Scuppernong• Also known as a muscadine. A type of large grape

found in the southeastern U.S.

Chiffarobe

• tall chest of drawers (dresser)

Cootie

• scalp insect(aka lice)

The Crash

• Stock market crash that led to Great Depression

CSA

• Confederate States of America

Dewey Decimal System

• classifying library books

Hain’t

• A ghost

Hermaphrodite

• having male and female qualities

• Scout hears it as “morphodite”

Ivanhoe

• A “knightly” novel by Sir Walter Scott

Hoover Carts

Appomattox

• Site of Lee’s surrender to Grant

Stonewall Jackson

• Confederate general

Jew’s Harp

• folk instrument used in country songs

Lord Melbourne

• British statesman under Queen Victoria

Mennonites

• religious sect that favors a simple lifestyle

Missouri Compromise

• 1820 act of Congress

Rosetta Stone

• ancient Egyptian tablet

WPA

• Works Progress Administration - created jobs in the 1930’s

Flag Pole Sitting• A fad in the 1920’s

People would spend hours (extending to days) to break a record.