Erskine Caldwell photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1938
Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17,1903-April 11, 1987) was an Americanauthor born in a house in the woods outside Moreland, Georgia in Coweta County. Caldwell was the son of a minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and he attended, but did not graduate from, Erskine College. He was athletic, played football, and stood six foot tall, and has been described by one of his publishers to have an unusually kind face and otherwise angelic appearance. His political sympathies lay with blue collar workers, and as he went from job to job in his younger days, drew on his experiences with common workers to write books that extolled the simple life of those less fortunate than he was. Later in life, he gave seminars on low income tenant-sharecroppers in the American South.
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