The Great Depression had a major impact on many people. It struck America with hunger, joblessness, homelessness, etc. It all began on Black Tuesday. This day marked the stock market crash where stocks lost 13% of their value and extremely high amounts of money in banks were lost and withdrawed. This was also the largest economic failure ever. The depression brought much poverty but along with this, people west of the Mississippi also had to deal with the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was the dust that blew over that area destroying crops and damaging homes. Not only this, but it also made the farming incredibly arduous. Irrigation was difficult because the dust would dry up all of the water. Again, the dust also destroyed the crops. Farners couldn't make money for their employers and not only this, they had to deal with the economy and, of course, dust decimating their property. As for the depression, in 1933 a man by the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt (a.k.a. FDR) was elected as president. He created "Alphabet Soup" or what it is more commonly referred to as "The New Deal". This was a group of organizations created to help solve all of the problems that were currently going on in the Great Depression. This was partly a plan of desperation where FDR created just about as many things as he could think of to help. Some of the thing that were created included giving citizens jobs and preventing banks from closing for periods longer than three days. It has been stated that WWII marked the end of the depression. This is due to the fact that the war required an extensive supply of weapons, bombs, and vehicles which opened up many jobs for people in factories. Surprisingly, women were the ones working these jobs. It was like this because nearly all of the men had gone to war, which was the main reason for the war ending the depression.
All of this is going to apply greatly to the setting of To Kill a Mocking Bird because everything will most likely look damaged and dirty by fault of the Dust Bowl. Most likely they will have no insulation or sheet-rock and maybe a few holes and empty windows. The characters may also look very shabby because they couldn't afford much during the depression along with the dust. In addition, the characters will probably be very grumpy towards one another. Also, with Scout's father being a lawyer, people may not be to nice towards her because she 'has it easy'.