In what year/time period is Their Eyes Were Watching set?

Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were
Watching God was published in 1937 and is considered one of the most
important works of the Harlem Renaissance, a movement in post-World War I African
American literature centered around a large African-American community in Harlem, an
area in northern Manhattan.

The novel is set in Eatonville,
Florida, a town near Orlando that was the first incorporated African-American community
in the United States. Eatonville was founded in 1887, during the Reconstruction
following the Civil War, in an area with relatively harmonious race relations (compared
to other parts of the south) and soon developed a substantial middle class
African-American population. 

Hurston does not mention the
specific date at which her novel is set, but we can assign a general time period  by
doing some analysis. First, the main action of the novel occurs after the end of World
War I, but before its publication date of 1937. Next, we know that Hurston traveled
around Florida in 1927 and 1928 studying regional folktales, and that some of the
folkloric material she collected was incorporated in the novel. Finally, there was a
hurricane in 1928 quite similar to the one discussed in the book. Therefore, we can say
that the novel is set in approximately 1927-1928, but that as it is a work of creative
fiction rather than journalism, it is more concerned with the nature of relationships
and culture than the specific historical events of those years.