Early Life and Rise To Power
Lewis was born in Cleveland, Iowa, the son of Thomas H. Lewis and Ann Watkins Lewis, both of whom had immigrated from Wales. Cleveland was a company town built around a coal mine one mile east of Lucas. The mother was a Mormon and the boy adopted her rigid views regarding alcohol and sexual propriety, but not her religion. He attended three years of high school in Des Moines and at the age of 17 went to work in the Big Hill Mine at Lucas. In 1907 he ran for mayor of Lucas and launched a feed-and-grain distributorship. Both were failures and Lewis returned to coal mining; in 1906 was elected a delegate to the United Mine Workers (UMW) national convention. He moved to Panama, Illinois, and in 1909 was elected president of the UMW local. In 1911 Samuel Gompers, the head of the AFL, hired Lewis as a full-time union organizer. Lewis traveled throughout Pennsylvania and the Midwest as an organizer and trouble-shooter, especially in coal and steel districts.
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