Life
1830-1930 [née Mary Harris, known as ‘Mother Jones’]; b.
Cork; emig. and ed. Canada; moved to Memphis, Tennessee, as teacher; m.
ironworker called Jones; lost husband and 4 children from yellow fever;
returned to Chicago; possessions destroyed in Great Fire, 1871; joined
Knights of Labor; took up cause of justice in Pittsburgh labour riots,
187; Haymarkert Strike, Chicago, 1886; Birmingham railroad strike, 1894;
W. Virginia and Colorado coal strikes, 190-13; New York street-car strike,
1915-16; called ‘most dangerous woman in America at whose arrival
20,000 contented men lay down their tools and walked out’ by W. Virginia
judge; organised ‘woman’s army’ to drive off scabs; sentenced
to 20 years for conspiracy to commit murder, W. Virginia, but released
after Congressional investigation at which he said, ‘whe[re]ver a
fight is on against wrong, I am always there’; led march of Philadephia
mill-workers to home of President Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, Long Island;
presented deformed 14-yr old boy to economics class in Harvard as ‘lesson
in economics’; called Roosevelt’s presidency a presidency of
the capitalist not the poor and contested his position in relation to
labour; d. 30 Nov., Silver Spring, Maryland; m. George E. Jones, d. 1867
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)