Everyone knows about Lincoln, of course, but it's odd that Springfield often overlooks the local connection to the most important labor leader in American history. Lewis idolized Lincoln and lived in Springfield while he lobbied the legislature on labor issues.
The AFL-CIO website describes how Lewis helped form many of the nation's largest unions.
President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) from 1920 until 1960 and founding president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), John Llewellyn Lewis was the dominant voice shaping the labor movement in the 1930s. The CIO owed its existence in large measure to Lewis, who was a tireless and effective advocate of industrial unionism and of government assistance in organizing basic industry.Saul Alinsky's biography of Lewis is a classic of movement organizing literature.
This must be why everyone will be out partying today with beads and such, right?