The coal miner's son from Lucas County who became the most powerful labor leader in America.
John Llewellyn Lewis was born on February 12, 1880, in the coal-mining country of Lucas County, Iowa, the son of Welsh immigrant miners. He went to work in the mines young and rose through the union ranks.
As president of the United Mine Workers of America for four decades and a founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), he became one of the most powerful and recognizable figures in 20th-century American labor.
Lewis reshaped the American workplace, winning wages, safety, and benefits for miners and helping organize millions of industrial workers. His Iowa birthplace region honors him at the John L. Lewis Mining & Labor Museum in Lucas.
He remains a towering figure in U.S. labor history — and an Iowan by birth.
The coal miner's son from Lucas County who became the most powerful labor leader in America.
John L. Lewis was from Lucas, Iowa.
1880–1969.
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