AdvertisementOpinionEudora Welty's Jackson: 'The Help' In ContextAugust 17, 2011W. Ralph EubanksfacebookEmailIn Jackson, Miss., in 1963, three very different women — from left, Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) and Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) — build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project in The Help, based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett. (Dreamworks Pictures)