Lewis E. Lawes

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 United States Coast Artillery. Afterwards, he worked at an insurance company before beginning his prison career as a guard at Clinton Prison in Dannemora, New York, on March 1, 1905. On September 30, 1905, he married Katherine Stanley. He subsequently worked at first Auburn Prison, then Elmira Reformatory. In March 1915 he was named Superintendent of the City Reformatory on Hart Island in New York City. Lawes became warden of the Massachusetts State Prison in 1918. New York Governor Al Smith asked him to take over as Warden of Sing Sing. Lawes took charge on January 1, 1920.[1]

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 Warden of Sing Sing for twenty-one years, instituting reforms, until he retired on July 16, 1941.[1][7][8] He was replaced by Robert J. Kirby.

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

Lawes died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 23, 1947, at age 63 in Garrison, New York.[7][8] He was interred at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

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]

• Lewis E. Lawes at IMDb
• Lewis E. Lawes Papers (1883–1947) (finding aid); collection housed in Lloyd Sealy Library Special Collections, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
• Photographs from the Lewis E. Lawes Papers (digitized) in the Lloyd Sealy Library Digital Collections