Mother jones autobiography

This little book is a story of a woman of action fired by a fine zeal.
Harris Jones (baptized 1837; died 1930), known as Mother Jones, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent organized labor.
"In this book Mother Jones tells how she marched at night over the mountains with two thousand women armed with mops and brooms to turn the mine mules loose in Coaldale and get the miners to join the strike.

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Autobiography of Mother Jones by Mother Jones

AuthorJones, Mother, 1837-1930Author of introduction, etc.Darrow, Clarence, 1857-1938EditorParton, Mary FieldTitle Autobiography of Mother Jones Note Reading ease score: 83.0 (6th grade). Easy to read. Credits Steve Mattern, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Summary "Autobiography of Mother Jones" by Mother Jones is an autobiographical account written in the early 20th century. This book chronicles the life of Mother Jones, one of the most influential figures in the American labor movement, detailing her relentless crusade for labor rights and her commitment to improving the lives of workers and their families. The narrative mixes her personal experiences with the larger context of labor struggles, particularly emphasizing the dramatic events that shaped the labor landscape in the United States. The opening of the autobiography begins with an introduction by Cl

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Autobiography of Mother Jones

July 31, 2019

When Irish-born school teacher Mary Harris Jones was in her late thirties, a yellow fever epidemic swept Memphis, TN, where she lived with her iron-molding husband and their four children:

All about my house I could hear weeping and the cries of delirium. One by one, my four little children sickened and died. I washed their little bodies and got them ready for burial. My husband caught the fever and died. I sat alone through nights of grief. No one came to me. No one could. (1)

For the rest of her life, Mary Harris Jones (better known as Mother Jones by the millions of surrogates who stood in for her four lost little ones), agitated ceaselessly for the rights of the poor and the workers across the United States. Her autobiography describes in vivid detail the plight faced by these poor nameless hordes, from coal miners toiling at a seam miles below ground to six-year old children bobbing around hand-crushing textile machinery for pennies a week.

Religion and labor, part I:

"You have to have religion to make a colony successful,
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The Autobiography of Mother Jones
Chapter I – Early Years
I was born in the city of Cork, Ireland, in 1830. My people were poor. For generations they had fought for Ireland’s freedom. Many of my folks have died in that struggle. My father, Richard Harris, came to America in 1835, and as soon as he had become an American citizen he sent for his family. His work as a laborer with railway construction crews took him to Toronto, Canada. Here I was brought up but always as the child of an American citizen. Of that citizenship I have ever been proud.
After finishing the common schools, I attended the Normal school with the intention of becoming a teacher. Dressmaking too, I learned proficiently. My first position was teaching in a convent in Monroe, Michigan. Later, I came to Chicago and opened a dress-making establishment. I preferred sewing to bossing little children. However, I went back to teaching again, this time in Memphis, Tennessee. Here I was married in 1861. My husband was an iron moulder and a member of the Iron Moulders’ Union.
In 1867, a fever epidemi