John Llewellyn Lewis

Object Details

Exhibition Label: A titan of the industrial labor movement, John L. Lewis captained the powerful United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) for forty turbulent years (1920–60). Still in his teens when he began work as a coal miner, Lewis joined the UMWA and rose steadily through its ranks. By the time he was elected president, the union was the largest in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The first decade of his leadership proved difficult as overproduction of coal triggered plummeting wages and job losses for miners. But Lewis turned the tide in 1933 by influencing labor codes in the New Deal’s National Recovery Administration to benefit coal workers. In 1935, after the AFL resisted his push to organize blue-collar workers by industry rather than craft, the ever-combative Lewis formed what became the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and led its bitter but successful struggles to unionize the steel and automotive industries.

Credit Line: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Estrellita Karsh in memory of Yousuf Karsh

1944

Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 27.8 × 21.5 cm (10 15/16 × 8 7/16"); Sheet: 35.2 × 27.5 cm (13 7/8 × 10 13/16"); Mount: 40.6 × 33 cm (16 × 13"); Mat (Karsh exhibit): 55.9 × 40.6 cm (22 × 16")

National Portrait Gallery

Topic: Costume\Dress Accessory\Tie\Necktie; John Llewellyn Lewis: Male; John Llewellyn Lewis: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Labor leader; John Llewellyn Lewis: Presidential Medal of Freedom; Portrait

GUID (Link to Original Record): http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm459d2b16f-5be4-404d-960b-47435f72f2be