The legendary Mother Jones, once called the "most dangerous woman
in America," holds an important position in American history because
of her struggle to achieve equality and justice for the country's
industrial laborers. On behalf of the workers, Mother Jones spent
much time in prison, and faced abuse from the public and from officials.
Although Mother Jones preached the doctrine of socialism to the
workers and advocated the overthrow of capitalism, she also knew
that workers needed short-term improvements in their lives, and
fought with them for better working conditions and better wages.
Born as Mary Harris in Ireland in 1837, Mother Jones experienced
a difficult early life, surrounded by the poverty of an Ireland devastated
by English domination and a famine that ravaged the vital potato
crop. In the early 1850s, Harris and her family left to establish
a better life in America, finally settling in Toronto. There, Mary
Harris attended school and studied to become a teacher. She left
the school without completing her degree and took a teaching position
in Monroe, Michigan, in 1859, then went to Chicago to try to work
as a dressmaker.
Finally, in 1860, Mary Harris moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where
she married George Jones in 1861 and gave birth to four children.
Her happy existence ended with the yellow fever epidemic in 1867,
which killed her husband and all four of her children. Mary Harris
left Memphis to start a new life as a dressmaker in Chicago, where
she became active in the labor movement. By the early 1890s, her
reputation as a devoted labor leader was beginning to be established,
and she had earned the moniker Mother Jones. Among other activities,
Jones was one of the organizers of Coxey's Army, a group of unemployed
men who marched on Washington to demand a federal jobs program.
By the late nineteenth- and early twentieth- centuries,
Mother Jones's reputation was of a national scale. She led organizing
efforts in striking mining communities, and helped J.A. Wayland
publish the leading leftist journal of the day, The Appeal
to Reason. As a union organizer for the United Mine Workers
of America, Mother Jones's work rallying workers and their families
was instrumental in the success of the strikes in Pennsylvania's
anthracite mines. However, Jones was most drawn to the coalminers
in West Virginia and Colorado, who worked and lived in particularly
deplorable conditions. She felt that she was most needed there,
and she worked in many campaigns, including the infamous Colorado
Coal War. Jones spoke on behalf of the workers and raised money
for strikes, and explained their cause to those who were not familiar
with it. Her last important struggle was for the steel workers
in 1919. She worked tirelessly, but the power of Andrew Carnegie's
US Steel prevailed.
In addition to working for a period as a speaker for the
Socialist Party, Mother Jones spoke at many different strikes and
rallied on behalf of all workers, especially those who were imprisoned
as a result of their activism. She became a legend in her time,
a near-mythical character in the minds of working men, women, and
children.
