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Mary Harris Jones ( May 1, 1830- November 30, 1930), better known as Mother Jones, was a prominent American labor and community organizer. Born in Cork, Ireland, her family moved to Toronto, Canada in 1835, shortly after her grandfather was hanged by the British for participation in the Irish national struggle. Upon completing school, she worked alternately as a teacher and a seamstress in the United States. She was introduced to unions through her husband, George Jones, a prominent member of the Iron Molders' Union. Two major turning points in her career were the deaths of her husband and four children during a yellow fever epidemic in Tennessee in 1867 and the loss of all her property in the Great Chicago FireThe Great Chicago Fire took place October 8 October 10, 1871, in Chicago, Illinois. Harper's Weekly Despite a well known legend that the Great Chicago Fire was started by a cow kicking over a lantern in the barn owned by Mrs. O'Leary on DeKoven Street, hi of 1871Events January January 18 The member-states of the North German Confederation unite into a single nation-state known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany. January 28 France surrenders to en. Forced to support herself, she became involved in the labor movement, joined the Knights of LaborThe Knights of Labor was a labor union founded in in December 1869, by a group of Philadelphia tailors led by Uriah S. Labor Day can be traced to two Knights' parades in New York City in 1882 and 1884. Structure and membership Most unions organized worker, a predecessor to the Industrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World IWW or the Wobblies is a nominally international, but effectively American, union movement headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, having much in common with anarcho-syndicalist unions, but also many differences. (IWW), or "Wobblies," which she helped to found in 1905Events January-April January 22 Massacre of Russian demonstrators at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, one of the triggers of the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905. January 26 The Cullinan Diamond is found near Pretoria, South Africa at the Premier. She was active as an organizer and educator in strikes throughout the country, and was particularly involved with the United Mine WorkersThe United Mine Workers (UMW or UMWA is a United States labor union that represents workers in mining. One of the groups in the forefront of the fight for collective bargaining in the early 20th century, the UMW was founded in Columbus, Ohio, on January 2 (UMW) and the Socialist Party of AmericaThe Socialist Party of America is a socialist political party in the United States. It was formed in 1901 by a merger between the Social Democratic Party of Eugene V. Debs, formed three years earlier by veterans of the Pullman Strike of the American Railw. As a union organizer, she became prominent for organizing the wives and children of striking workers in demonstrations on their behalf. In 19031903 has the latest occurring solstices and equinoxes for 400 years, because the Gregorian calendar hasn't had a leap year for seven years or a century leap year since 1600. Events January 1 Edward VII of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Emperor of India, she organized children working in mills and mines in the "Children's Crusade" - a march from Kensington , Pennsylvania to Oyster Bay, New York, home of President Theodore Roosevelt, with banners demanding "We want time to play!" and "We want to go to school!" Though the President refused to meet with the marchers, the incident brought the issue of child labor to the forefront of the public agenda.
In 1913, during the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike in West Virginia, Mother Jones was arrested and convicted with other union organizers of conspiring to commit murder, after organizing another children's march. Already eighty-three years old, her arrest raised an uproar and she was soon released from prison, after the Senate ordering an investigation into the conditions in the coal mines. A few months later she was in Colorado, helping to organize the coal miners there. Once again she was arrested, and after serving some time in prison, deported, in the months leading up to the Ludlow Massacre.
By 1924, the 94 year-old Mother Jones was in court again, this time facing varying charges of libel, slander, and sedition. In 1925, Charles A. Albert, publisher of the fledgling Chicago Times, won a stunning $350,000 judgement against the failing matriarch.
Mother Jones remained a union organizer for the UMW affairs into her nineties, and continued to speak on union affairs almost until her hundredth birthday. Soon after her official retirement, at the age of ninety-five, she released her own account of her experiences in the labor movement as The Autobiography of Mother Jones ( 1925).
These days, many people know her mostly because of the American magazine Mother Jones, which advocates many of the social views that Mother Jones espoused.
Jones, Mother
Jones, Mother
Jones, Mother
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Jones, Mother
