Mary Harris Jones

Labor and Community Organizer

August 1, 1837 Cork, County Cork, Ireland

November 30, 1930 Adelphi, Maryland, United States

George E. Jones

Mary Harris ‘Mother’ Jones was a courageous fighter for the rights of the workers and organizer of workers’ strikes in the first two decades of the 20th century. She was an inspiring figure for the distressed strikers and used to clad herself in typical black Victorian dresses, which made her look older than she actually. She used to refer to the striking miners as ‘her boys’, which is why she gained popularity as ‘Mother Jones’. For her great ability to bring people together and motivate them to fight for their rights, she was once called by a U.S. district attorney as ‘the most dangerous woman in America’. Jones was born in Ireland but migrated to Canada after the Irish famine ruined her family’s farms. After she faced personal tragedies like: losing her husband and children to yellow fever and losing her possessions in the Great Chicago Fire, she dedicated her life to fight for the cause of better working conditions for laborers and abolition of child labor. She was the organizer of the famous ‘Children’s Crusade’ in which she marched, with child laborers, from Philadelphia to New York to meet President Roosevelt and discuss the evils of child labor. She faced prison a few times in her life and died at the age of around 93 in Maryland.