Caldwell, Erskine, << UR skihn >> (1903-1987), was an American author best known for the sensationalism of his novels about rural Southern life. His most famous works portray the impact of changing cultural and economic conditions on poverty-stricken white tenant farmers. Caldwell told about men and women reduced to the basic hungers of life and starved of the satisfaction of these hungers. His emphasis on sex and violence, even when combined with humor, was condemned by some people as crude, vulgar, sensationalistic, and immoral.
Caldwell wrote more than 50 books. He first became famous with Tobacco Road (1932), which features his best-known character, Jeeter Lester. Tobacco Road was adapted into a play in 1933 that ran for more than seven years on Broadway. Caldwell’s next novel, God’s Little Acre (1933), increased his fame. His other novels include Journeyman (1935), Georgia Boy (1943), and Tragic Ground (1944). His Complete Stories appeared in 1953. His nonfiction includes two volumes of autobiography, Call It Experience (1951) and With All My Might (1987). He wrote the text for Margaret Bourke-White’s book of photographs of the Great Depression, You Have Seen Their Faces (1937). Caldwell was born in White Oak, Georgia, on Dec. 17, 1903. He died on April 11, 1987.
