Judith Pinkerton Josephson has taught at various grade levels, and has written books for children—biographies, picture books, and childhood history books—and co-written two zany grammar guides for adults. She believes that behind every person and every relationship, there lies a story. Capturing the essence of that story in the space and time it took place makes writing fascinating. Visit her website for more information.

 

As I was writing my biography of Mary Harris Jones, a.k.a. Mother Jones, I visualized her stomping around my office in her long black dress, hat, and boots, looking over my shoulder to make sure I captured her spirit and tenacity. Every once in a while, her words would hover in the air: “Get it right. I’m not a humanitarian. I’m a hell raiser.” “I was born in revolution.” “I reside wherever there is a good fight against wrong—all over the country. . . . Wherever the workers are fighting the robbers, I go there.” “Women can do so much if they only realize their power. . . . Nobody wants a lady. They want women.”

Childhood in Ireland

As a child in Ireland in the 1830s, Mary witnessed deadly clashes between British soldiers and peasant farmers, including members of her own family. After immigrating to the United States, she did well in school, becoming the first in her family to graduate from high school. Along the way, she acquired skills that would serve her well— teaching, dressmaking, giving speeches, and debating.

Family Tragedy

But Mary’s path in life was not to be an easy one. In Memphis, Tennessee, after the Civil War ended, she watched helplessly as her ironworker husband and four children all died of yellow fever. Out of the ashes of those sorrows, a fierce compassion for the downtrodden grew.

Champion for Workers’ Rights

Mary took up the cause of American workers, adopting them as her family. Workers—adults and many children—who toiled away in coal mines, textile mills, and other industries, often labored for long hours under dangerous conditions for wages that could barely sustain them. She hiked up mountains wearing hip boots and her trademark long, black dresses, just so she could talk with miners. She spoke to crowds using peppery language and a folksy tone, “Listen boys . . . let me tell you.” She stood on picket lines with mothers, whose young boys toiled twelve hours a day underground as mule tenders or breaker boys. Of young girls working in cotton mills, she said, “I’ve got stock in these little children.” In the March of the Mill Children, she took three hundred men, women, and children to speak with then-president Teddy Roosevelt and to plead the case against child workers.

Unintimidated by railroad barons, mine and mill owners, governors, even presidents of the United States, she brought a simple message to all, rights for workers.  From that moment on, Mary Harris Jones became known, beloved, and called, simply Mother Jones.

For sixty years, Mother Jones crisscrossed the nation, urging men, women, and child workers to fight for their rights through labor unions. Her mission took her from the poorest coal miner’s shack to the halls of Congress, from the ragged children in the textile mills all the way to presidents of the United States.

A Long Life

Mother Jones always went “wherever the fight was the fiercest.” One of her last wishes was that she could “live another hundred years in order to fight to the end that there would be no more machine guns and no more sobbing of little children.” Mother Jones’s feisty and unyielding determination make her one of American labor’s most unforgettable champions.

Mother Jones—her indomitable spirit, stirring words, and bold actions— is a role model for young people to emulate today. Filled with thought-provoking photographs, this biography is appropriate for readers from sixth grade on up, but it also holds inspiration for adults as well.

Note: Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers’ Rights is part of A Spotlight Biography series for young people and is available as an ebook for only $1.99 through October 31.