Mother Jones

Jones, Mary Harris

 orig. Mary Harris known as Mother Jones

(born May 1, 1830, Cork, Ire.—died Nov. 30, 1930, Silver Spring, Md., U.S.) Irish-born U.S. labour organizer. She was brought to the U.S. as a child in 1835. In 1867 she lost her children and husband (an ironworker) in a yellow-fever epidemic in Memphis, Tenn.; four years later she lost all her possessions in the great Chicago fire. She turned for assistance to the Knights of Labor, which led to her becoming a highly visible figure in the U.S. labour movement. She traveled across the country, organizing for the United Mine Workers and supporting strikes wherever they were being held. At 93 she was still working among striking coal miners in West Virginia. She actively supported legislation to prohibit child labour. She was a founder of the Social Democratic Party (1898) and the Industrial Workers of the World (1905). Her autobiography was published in 1925. She died at the age of 100 and was buried in the Union Miners' Cemetery in Mount Olive, Ill.

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Mother Jones See Jones, Mary B.