Mother Jones :: essays research papers

Mary Harris Jones Mary Harris was born on May 1, 1830. She was born near Cork, Ireland. Her father got into some political trouble and had to move the family to Canada when she was eight historic period old. After high school Mary decided she wanted to be a schoolteacher and subsequently moved to Tennessee in 1861. That is when she met George Jones and they got married. He was an Iron break up like her father. In 1868, Marry Harris Jones lost her entire family to yellow fever. She was 37 years old and it killed her four children and her husband. It had swept Memphis where they lived. After this happened to her, Mary moved to lolly to become a seamstress. Before she could get her little shop going a fire burnt down her business and her house with all of her dimension in 1871. Mary was having an awful time but managed to keep on trying. She finally got a job working with people who wanted to get dainty wages and have their working environment improved. She also tried to stop chi ld labor. Her work involved making speeches, recruiting members and organizing soup kitchens and womens auxiliary groups during strikes. Mary Jones later became an official for the United Mine Workers Union. She was in her sixties at this time and everyone knew her as Mother Jones. She was also known as a hell raiser and called the Most Dangerous Women in the World. The establishment types she battled had less flattering things to say about her. On the floor of the House of Representatives she was branded a notorious and troublesome woman. Mary became a member of the Industrial Workers World. This is also known as the Wobblies. Mary Jones traveled the country helping workers to form themselves into unions. In 1908 Jones vie a leading role in the mine strike in Paint Creek, West Virginia. During the strike, men employed by the mine-owners machine-gunned the strikers and their families. Mary was accused of organism involved in this act and when one of the guards was murdered she was thrown in jail with a twenty-year sentence.