Mother (for Mother Jones) - master (2008) by gretchenpeters published on 2020-09-08T00:25:27Z Mary Harris Jones, known as Mother Jones, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, and activist. She helped coordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. She lost her husband and four children to yellow fever, and shortly after, lost her worldly possessions in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. She could easily have given up. Instead she became an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union. In 1902, she was called "the most dangerous woman in America" for her success in organizing mine workers and their families against the mine owners. In 1903, to protest the lax enforcement of the child labor laws in the Pennsylvania mines and silk mills, she organized a children's march from Philadelphia to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in New York. She spent many nights in jail, including one stint at age 80. She lived to be 100, and is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois, alongside miners who died in the 1898 Battle of Virden, whom she called “her boys”. They called her “The Miner’s Angel”. I was proud to be asked to contribute a song to a commemorative tribute to Mother Jones at the rededication of her grave site in Mt. Olive. To say she is an inspiration doesn’t begin to cover it. Happy Labor Day. Genre Folk & Singer-Songwriter Comment by Vincent Budd Such a wonderful song ... as always. Thank you, Gretchen. 2020-09-09T21:11:26Z Comment by TommyAdair Amazing song! Wow! 2020-09-08T19:51:31Z Comment by Tara Henton Beautiful, Gretchen! ❤️🎶 2020-09-08T06:02:47Z Comment by Pete Price Another great song, Gretchen. Thanks for putting out such wonderful and insightful songs. You're an inspiration. 2020-09-08T03:43:10Z