A L E A F F R O M Author Paul Allen remembers a time when tobacco was the king of crops OUR PAST
P eople in Tillsonburg generally know a thing or two about tobacco. After all, it was the town’s leading agricultural crop for the better part of the last century. Not only were dozens of area farms devoted to growing it, but countless residents were employed in its harvest—whether priming wet, sticky sand leaves at dawn or sweating mightily to make the last kiln. Still, even the most knowledgeable tobacco farmer will likely find something new in Paul E. Allen’s book, When Tobacco Was King . Equal parts biography and history, the book
highlights the rise and fall of the controversial tobacco industry in Canada by following the adventures of Allen’s father, Edward Dupree Allen. “This is the story of the evolution of the tobacco business that started in the southern United States and moved into Canada,” says Allen. “It’s also the story a young man from North Carolina who worked his way up from a tobacco field-hand to eventually become president of Canadian Leaf Tobacco Company, the second-largest tobacco purchaser and processor of tobacco in the country.”
Drawing previously unpublished records, personal correspondence and extensive historical research, Allen highlights the impact tobacco had not only on his family, but entire communities. As Allen points out, the arrival of the tobacco industry in southwestern Ontario was a game-changer. It created employment during the Depression, stimulated the local economy for decades afterward and taught generations of young people the value of a hard-day’s work. These benefits came at a cost to public health, of course, on
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