09/07/2026
Happy Labor Day!
“Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living!”
“Mary Harris “Mother” Jones rose to prominence as a fiery orator and fearless organizer for the Mine Workers during the first two decades of the 20th century. Her voice had great carrying power. Her energy and passion inspired people half her age into action and compelled them to join in the struggle.
Born August 1, 1837, as Mary Harris in Cork County, Ireland, the woman who would become Mother Jones immigrated to North America with her family as a child to escape the Irish potato famine.
In her early 20s, she moved to Chicago, where she worked as a dressmaker, and then to Memphis, Tenn., where she met and married George Jones. The couple had four children when tragedy struck: A yellow fever epidemic in 1867, which killed hundreds of people, took the lives of Mary’s husband and all four children.
Mary moved back to Chicago and returned to commercial dressmaking. She opened her own shop, patronized by some of the wealthiest women in town. According to one account of her life, Mary’s interest in the union movement grew when she sewed for wealthy Chicago families. “I would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking alongside the frozen lake front,” she said. “The tropical contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort of the people for whom I sewed was painful to me. My employers seemed neither to notice nor to care.”
Tragedy struck Mary again when she lost everything in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. After the fire, Mary began to travel across the country, from town to town in support of workers’ struggles.
Mother Jones’ organizing methods were unique for her time. She welcomed African American workers and involved women and children in strikes. She staged parades with children carrying signs that read, “We Want to Go to School and Not to the Mines.”
May we be inspired by Mother Jones today to stand alongside the most vulnerable among us!
Commissioned by Leslie Albanese
Signed Giclee Prints: kellylatimoreicons.com
