Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
1830(?)-1930
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"Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the
living"
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Irish-born Mother Jones
was a champion of the country's weakest and neediest during the period of
America's great industrial growth. For countless workers she was both goad and
inspiration in their struggles to organize for mutual protection. Her flaming
rhetoric and fearless campaigning helped swell the ranks of the United Mine
Workers who called her the Miners' Angel. With the look of an angel and the
tongue of a mule skinner, she tramped the land, venting her searing invective
against the shame of child labor and those who exploited the working class. A
magnificent scold, she was a ringing voice on behalf of workers and their
families, a leader in the miners' colossal struggles in West Virginia, Colorado
and Pennsylvania. She met with Presidents, from McKinley to Coolidge, in
support of her people, and suffered jailings, personal attacks and unbelievable
hardships for her efforts to ease their impoverished lives.
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