In general, Southerners are somewhat untrusting of outsiders.
Alabama during the time of To Kill a Mockingbird is no exception. The Civil
War was still current in the minds of some Maycomb citizens, and there are quite a few references
to it throughout the novel. Miss Caroline and her new-fangled teaching style is much like the
Yankee carpetbaggers who invaded the South after the war, bent on making money and taking
advantage of its down-trodden citizens. Harper Lee's creation of a young outsider makes her seem
suspicious to both the children and their parents alike. The fact that she is from Winston County
in Northern Alabama--and apparently very proud of it--makes her even more questionable. Lee
reveals that Winston County itself seceded from Alabama after the state's secession from the U.S.
prior to the Civil War, making citizens of Winston County the equivalent of "Yankees." Simply
put,
North Alabama was
full of Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors and other persons
of no background.
No doubt these are
the young Scout's words (and not in adult retrospect), remembered and repeated from the gossip of
Miss Stephanie or other neighbors (and possibly even some from Atticus himself). Not only is Miss
Caroline an outsider and a newcomer to Maycomb, her condescending attitude marks her as a modern
day scalawag--a Southerner who supported the Reconstruction policies of the Union--and not a
person that will fit into Maycomb's little world.
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