What is the economic development that is referenced through the famous allusion on the top of p.6? Include a quote to support your answer.

The text is alluding to the Great Depression.

A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.