Lewis E. Lawes

Lewis Edward Lawes (September 13, 1883 – April 23, 1947) was a

Lawes was born on September 13, 1883, in Elmira, New York.^[2] He was the only child of Henry Lewis Lawes (died 1925) and Sarah Abbott. His father worked as a prison guard at the New York State Reformatory, now called the Elmira Correctional Facility.^[3]

Lawes ran away at 17 and joined the

He was featured on the cover and in an article of Time magazine issue of November 18, 1929.

His wife, Kathryn (1887-1937), died on October 31, 1937, at Ossining Hospital after she fell at the Cortlandt, New York, end of the Bear Mountain Bridge. The heel of her shoe was caught between two boards and it caused her to fall and break her leg. She wasn't found until nighttime and she died from hypothermia.^[4][5][6]

Characters based on Lewis and Kathryn Lawes may be found in David Pietrusza's 2014 historical novel "Dance Hall: A Novel of Sing Sing."

He remained at his post as

Lawes became the president of the Boy Rangers of America in 1941.^[9]

Lawes died of a

Lawes wrote several books. Several of his works were made into films. His most famous book, Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing, was made into a 1932 movie under the same title, starring Spencer Tracy, and again in 1940 as Castle on the Hudson, featuring John Garfield. Over the Wall was produced in 1938 based on the life of one of his inmates, Alabama Pitts.^[10][11] Invisible Stripes in 1939, with George Raft, was based on his novel of the same name, while Humphrey Bogart starred in You Can't Get Away with Murder in 1939, an adaptation of Chalked Out, a play Lawes co-wrote.

His papers are archived in the Special Collections of the Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice.^[2][12]

References