MIA > Archive > Austin Lewis
Austin Lewis (1865–1944) was born into a Jewish family in London, moving to the US as a young man. Settling there he became a radical San Francisco labor lawyer, translator, writer and researcher, and a revolutionary activist for decades. He defended trade unionists, labor organizations and fought government injunctions. He was a founder of the ACLU and for many years he was Tom Mooney’s lawyer. A member of the Socialist Party, he would become a key theorist for the growing syndicalist movement in the US, particularly as a contributor to International Socialist Review, and was an important figure in the SP’s Left Wing. He and Louis Fraina moved the New Review to the left during World War I and Lewis became an editor of the early pro-Bolshevik Class Struggle magazine. In his later years he focused on his work as a lawyer defending class-war prisoners and union drives.
Last updated on 11 June 2022