93,715 profiles ranked live

Back to the boardThe board

Joseph L. Lewis

✓ Source-basedfalling

American activist (1889-1968)

United StatesWritersLived 1889 to 1968 · aged 79
Compare
Fame37.0
MomentumNot measured
Languages5
In century#198,155

Joseph Lewis was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. During the mid-twentieth century, he was one of America's most conspicuous public atheists, the other being Emanuel Haldeman-Julius.

Also inDeutsch

Photos 1

This undated photo from the early 1950s shows the Robert Green Ingersoll birthplace prior to its 1954 restoration by Lewis's organization. The man and woman are Arthur and Ruth Cromwell, husband-and-wife freethinkers from Rochester, New York, who served as Lewis's primary agents for much of the restoration work. Their daughter, Vashti McCollum, had been the plaintiff in McCollum v. Board of EducationThis undated photo from the early 1950s shows the Robert Green Ingersoll birthplace prior to its 1954 restoration by Lewis's organization. The man and woman are Arthur and Ruth Cromwell, husband-and-wife freethinkers from Rochester, New York, who served as Lewis's primary agents for much of the restoration work. Their daughter, Vashti McCollum, had been the plaintiff in McCollum v. Board of Education

Writers from United States 6

E. Everett Evans37.0Thomas Owen Clancy37.0P. J. Wolfson37.0Angela N. H. Creager37.0Alexander Marx37.0Douglas Morrow37.0

About this person

Joseph Lewis was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. During the mid-twentieth century, he was one of America's most conspicuous public atheists, the other being Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Born in Montgomery, Alabama to a Jewish family, he was forced by poverty to leave school at the age of nine to find employment. He read avidly, becoming self-educated. Lewis developed his ideas from reading, among others, Robert G. Ingersoll, whose published works made him aware of Thomas Paine. He was first impressed by atheism after having read a large volume of lectures of Ingersoll devoted to his idol Paine, which was brought to their house by his older brother. He later credited Paine's The Age of Reason with helping him abandon theism.

Country
United States
Category
Writers
Type
Writer / Author
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1889 to 1968 · aged 79
Written about in
5 languages

Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.