Iorwith Wilbur Abel

Iorwith Wilbur Abel (August 11, 1908 – August 10, 1987), also known as I.W. Abel, was an American labor leader. I.W. Abel was born in Magnolia, Ohio, in 1908, to John Franklin Abel, a German blacksmith, and Mary Ann (née Jones) Abel, the daughter of a Welsh coal miner. He attended local public school and graduated from Magnolia High School in 1925. He attended college at Canton Actual Business College in Canton, Ohio, but did not graduate. In 192... More

Iorwith Wilbur Abel (August 11, 1908 – August 10, 1987), also known as I.W. Abel, was an American labor leader. I.W. Abel was born in Magnolia, Ohio, in 1908, to John Franklin Abel, a German blacksmith, and Mary Ann (née Jones) Abel, the daughter of a Welsh coal miner. He attended local public school and graduated from Magnolia High School in 1925. He attended college at Canton Actual Business College in Canton, Ohio, but did not graduate. In 1925 he worked as a molder for the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company (now U.S. Steel) in Canton. He switched jobs often, finding employment at the Canton Malleable Iron Company, the Timken Roller Bearing Company and the Colonial Foundry. Abel married Bernice Joseph in 1930. The couple had three children. Bernice Abel died in 1982, and Abel married Martha Turvey a few years later. Laid off due to the Great Depression, Abel worked at a brickmaking company loading a kiln at less than a quarter his former pay. Convinced that a union would have...

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