Tobacco Road (novel) Tobacco Road (novel) Tobacco Road is a 1932 novel by Erskine Caldwell about Georgia sharecroppers. It was dramatized for Broadway by Jack Kirkland in 1933, and ran for eight years, an astounding feat for a non-musical and, as of 2014, it was still the 18th longest-running Broadway show in history as well as being the second-longest running non-musical ever on Broadway. The novel ultimately argues for the sterilization of Georgia's poor whites, as the author's father, Ira Caldwell, had argued in his 1930 article in "The Eugenics Review". A 1941 film version, deliberately played mainly for laughs, was directed by
Tobacco Road (play) $20). The show also toured, becoming "phenomenal" on the road, playing repeat engagements. Brooks Atkinson wrote: "The theatre has never sheltered a fouler or more degenerate parcel of folks than the hardscrabble family of Lester...It is the blunt truth of the characters he is describing, and it leaves a malevolent glow of poetry... As Jeeter Lester, Henry Hull gives the performance of his career. Plays as clumsy and rudderless as 'Tobacco Road' seldom include so many scattered items that leave such a vivid impression." The play was banned in major cities such as Chicago and Detroit for being sensational and