For some reason, I have never known much about the indomitable woman known as Mother Jones. But noticing that she died 90 years ago, on November 30, 1930, I decided to read some about her and to share some of what I discovered about that most remarkable woman.
 |
| Mother Jones, 1924 |
Learning
about Mother Jones
In
her autobiography published in 1925, Mary Harris Jones claimed that she was
born in Ireland on May 1, 1830. Well, the country is correct, but the date
probably isn’t. Most likely she was born shortly before her Catholic parents
had her baptized on August 1, 1837.
In the late 1840s, Richard Harris, Mary’s father, emigrated to the U.S. and then a couple of years later Mary’s mother and siblings joined him in Canada where he
was then working.
By
1861, Mary had moved to Memphis, and the next ten years were filled with joy
and tragedy. In that Tennessee city, Mary married George Jones and in the next
five years they had four children. But then in 1867, George and all four of
their children died of yellow fever.
Mary
then moved to Chicago and started a dressmaking business, only to lose it and
most of her possessions in the Great Fire of 1871.
In the 1870s, Mary Jones became affiliated with the Knights of Labor (KoL) and
became lifelong friends with Terence Powderly (1849~1924) who was the Grand
Master Workman of KoL from 1879 to '93.
After
the demise of KoL in 1893, Mary became heavily involved with the United Mine
Workers. When she began working for
that fledgling union in the 1890s, it had 10,000 members; within a few years,
300,000 men had joined, and it became the largest union in the U.S.
Claiming
to be older than she actually was, Mary started being called Mother Jones by
1897.
Her
tireless work, and success, in
organizing strikes for the betterment of working conditions for miners and
other laboring people prompted a West Virginia district attorney in 1902 to
call her “the most dangerous woman in America.”
The danger, though, was to the wealthy mine owners and others who profited off the labor of their insufficiently paid workers. By contrast, for some fifty years she was instrumental in helping improve the working and living conditions for common laborers across the United States.
Mother
Jones’s funeral in 1930 was held at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. She
was then buried in Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois, after she was
honored with another funeral Mass in that small Illinois town.
Learning
from Mother Jones
Here
are some important lessons we today can learn from the indomitable Mother
Jones:
** Pressing on in spite of adversity. The five
years between 1867 and 1871 was a terrible time for Mary Harris Jones. Can you
imagine losing four children, your spouse, your business, and all your possessions
in the space of five years?
And yet, Mary pressed on becoming
increasingly involved in seeking to help others. In spite of her personal
tragedies, for nearly fifty years she lived mostly to help the working poor
across the country. What an inspiration!
**
Recognizing that “silence is violence.” The lifework of Mother Jones, a
lifelong Catholic, is expressed in these oft-quoted words of hers: “Pray for
the dead and fight like hell for the living.” She was a woman who wouldn’t keep
silent, even though harassed and jailed repeatedly.
**
Expressing faith in deeds, not words. Although a Christian, Mother Jones was
not a “pious” churchwoman and seemingly didn’t talk a lot about her faith. But
her indefatigable activity for others was in harmony with the kinds of things
Jesus noted in Matthew 25:31~40 about his true followers.
These
are just three of the many things we might learn from Mary Harris Jones, who
probably did more for laboring people than any other woman in the history of
the U.S.
*****
Links: Here is the link to the Mother Jones Museum website, which has a wealth of information about Jones.
Also, see this link to access Mother Jones, the politically progressive/liberal magazine that was founded
in 1976 and named in honor of Mary Harris Jones.
