Tobacco Road - Rural Poverty and Elite Hatred
He's got to preach against the devil and all wicked and sinful things.
That’s what the people like to hear about.
They want to hear about the bad things.
Erskine Caldwell - Tobacco Road
Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road (1932) depicts the lives of rural poor in Georgia, at the time of the Great Depression. In this period, the mechanisation of cotton farming had pushed much of local population out of the fields, who were then pulled into the cities where job prospects were better.
Caldwell deals with those that are left behind, after mass migration, to face the harshest of conditions. Southern evangelicals have often seen the poor as an immoral sub-stratem separated from God. The more secular Caldwell saw the poor them as being a sub-stratem separated from a 'moral' society, that had either to be reformed and incorporated or eradicated.
Like the characters of his book, Caldwell, himself, is preaching against a devil of his own creation. His imagined poor, despite his claims to being a realist writer, are the poor that Caldwell wants them to be. They, for Caldwell, fulfill the role of an out group doing wicked and sinful things. The dismissal and contempt of an out-group (the rural poor) and the self-aggrandizement of an in-group (Caldwell's friends and people like him, people, I'm guessing that they were secular Calvinists) is an activity as old as humanity.
He makes people like himself feel more secure; he reinforces tribal loyalty, by showing by an imagined example that by comparison, we can only conclude, that we are better than them. Tobacco Road, written in the early days of the American eugenics movement, also portraited the rural poor as a biological sub-class of ugly and deformed interbred individuals, and hinted at a possible eugenic solution to their 'immoral' behaviour.
Caldwell was not looking for someone to love, but someone to hate.
He's got to preach against the devil and all wicked and sinful things.
That’s what the people like to hear about.
They want to hear about the bad things.
Erskine Caldwell - Tobacco Road
Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road (1932) depicts the lives of rural poor in Georgia, at the time of the Great Depression. In this period, the mechanisation of cotton farming had pushed much of local population out of the fields, who were then pulled into the cities where job prospects were better.
Caldwell deals with those that are left behind, after mass migration, to face the harshest of conditions. Southern evangelicals have often seen the poor as an immoral sub-stratem separated from God. The more secular Caldwell saw the poor them as being a sub-stratem separated from a 'moral' society, that had either to be reformed and incorporated or eradicated.
Like the characters of his book, Caldwell, himself, is preaching against a devil of his own creation. His imagined poor, despite his claims to being a realist writer, are the poor that Caldwell wants them to be. They, for Caldwell, fulfill the role of an out group doing wicked and sinful things. The dismissal and contempt of an out-group (the rural poor) and the self-aggrandizement of an in-group (Caldwell's friends and people like him, people, I'm guessing that they were secular Calvinists) is an activity as old as humanity.
He makes people like himself feel more secure; he reinforces tribal loyalty, by showing by an imagined example that by comparison, we can only conclude, that we are better than them. Tobacco Road, written in the early days of the American eugenics movement, also portraited the rural poor as a biological sub-class of ugly and deformed interbred individuals, and hinted at a possible eugenic solution to their 'immoral' behaviour.
Caldwell was not looking for someone to love, but someone to hate.
Tobacco Road - The Pop Song - Loudermilk & the White Trash Band
John D. Loudermilk's song, Tobacco Road, was written 1960 and was clearly influenced by Caldwell. Loudermilk, born in North Carolina, came from a background that was similiar to Erskine Caldwell's. He witnessed rural poverty in North Carolina, similiar in some ways to that of Great Depression Georgia. Some aspects of Caldwell's novel clearly resonated with him, however, he was much more forgiving of the rural poor. He was less willing to demonise and categorise. The misfortunes that befall the rural poor, in Loudermilk's song, are brought about by hard luck rather than gross immorality or biological degeneracy.
The British record industry and the group, The Nashville Teens, in an Americanised British popular culture, where everything American was hip, popularised the song. The song became a top-twenty hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1964.
There are many recordings of the song, including recordings by those, like Edgar Winter's White Trash, who seemed, at one time, to have embraced aspects of the white trash stigmatised identity associated with the song.
The British record industry and the group, The Nashville Teens, in an Americanised British popular culture, where everything American was hip, popularised the song. The song became a top-twenty hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1964.
There are many recordings of the song, including recordings by those, like Edgar Winter's White Trash, who seemed, at one time, to have embraced aspects of the white trash stigmatised identity associated with the song.
Tobacco Road - Lyrics
I was born in a trunk.*
Mama died and my daddy got drunk.
Left me here to die alone
In the middle of Tobacco Road.
Growin' up rusty shack,
All I had was hangin' on my back.
Only you know how I loathe
This place called Tobacco Road.
But it's home, the only life I ever known.
Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.
Gonna leave, get a job
With the help and the grace from above.
Save some money, get rich and old,
Bring it back to Tobacco Road.
But it's home, the only life I ever known.
Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.
Bring that dynamite and a crane,
Blow it up, start all over again.
Build a town, be proud to show.
Gives the name Tobacco Road
* The original Loudermilk version - I was born in a lump.
I was born in a trunk.*
Mama died and my daddy got drunk.
Left me here to die alone
In the middle of Tobacco Road.
Growin' up rusty shack,
All I had was hangin' on my back.
Only you know how I loathe
This place called Tobacco Road.
But it's home, the only life I ever known.
Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.
Gonna leave, get a job
With the help and the grace from above.
Save some money, get rich and old,
Bring it back to Tobacco Road.
But it's home, the only life I ever known.
Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.
Bring that dynamite and a crane,
Blow it up, start all over again.
Build a town, be proud to show.
Gives the name Tobacco Road
* The original Loudermilk version - I was born in a lump.
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