Mary Harris (Mother) Jones
Today, young people probably have never heard of a woman named Mary Harris Jones.
She was famous, or infamous if you will, in her day, all across America as a labor and community organizer. She lived 93 years, from her birth in County Cork, Ireland in 1837, to her death in Maryland in 1930.
She met a host of terrible events as a young woman. When she was a young girl, the Great Potato Famine forced her and her family, along with a million other Irish families, to emigrate to North America. In 1861, she married George E. Jones, a member and organizer of the National Union of Iron Moulders. In 1867, her husband George and their four children, all under the age of five, were carried off by the yellow fever epidemic. After that, Mary moved to Chicago to start a dressmaking business, where, four years later, she lost her home, shop, and possessions in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
After that, she began organizing strikes, mainly with the United Mine Workers. This was a turbulent time of confrontation between workers of different industries and industry owners over wages and working hours and conditions. Management often brought in strike-breakers and militias to break up the unions.
Throughout the rest of her life, Mother Jones, as she came to be known, worked tirelessly on the behalf of workers and their families. She organized children who were working in mills and mines under bad conditions, and was instrumental in bringing the issue of child labor to the forefront of public awareness. More than once she was arrested and spent time in jail.
Once denounced on the floor of the United States Senate as the “grandmother of all agitators”, she replied:
“I hope to live long enough to be the great-grandmother of all agitators.”
Her work became legendary among mine workers. The Mother Jones Festival is still held annually close to her birthplace in Ireland, celebrating her legacy between admirers in Ireland and the United States.
She was one woman – a great woman – who, overcoming her own early personal tragedies, waged an all-out war for the betterment of other peoples’ lives.
She was one, of many, who came before us, to whom we all owe deep remembrance and gratitude.
