The Mother Jones Heritage Project Committee and its supporters marched in the St Patrick’s Day parades 2025.
Accompanied by the enormous Mother Jones float the large contingent made a colourful display in the windy City with their banners of “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living”. While it was balmy on Saturday, heavy snow fell on Sunday.
According to organiser Rosemary Feurer, who was delighted with the large turnout and the crowds response” It was really heartening to hear the cheers from the crowd. “I LOVE MOTHER JONES!!” and “Go, Mother!” “and this rubbed off on the enthusiastic marchers.
It was a great celebration of Cork born Mother Jones.
All photographs courtesy of Dave Adams. Our thanks to the Mother Jones Heritage Project in Chicago.
The Mother Jones Foundation annual dinner was held at Springfield, Illinois on Saturday evening 12th October last. The Foundation is the longest established organisation which promotes the work of Mother Jones and is dedicated to educating and raising awareness about labour history.
Mother Jones Foundation Dinner 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The large attendance at the 2025 event heard guest speaker, author Hamilton Nolan speak of the power of the trade union movement to practice democracy, “a union is not a special interest, a union is a training school for democracy”.
Solidarity Forever. Photo: Mike Matejka.Solidarity Forever: James Goltz is on the right hand side. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Nolan called on trade unions to organise millions of working people into the movement and to just go out and organise. While union membership has dropped dramatically in the past decades, there has been a recent resurgence in numbers, in activism and in the fight against inequality.
Author: Hamilton Nolan with Joann Condellone of the Mt. Olive Cemetery Committee. Jim Alderson is in the red shirt. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Sunday October 13th saw a further large attendance gather under a sunny blue sky for the annual Miners’ Day at the Union Miners’ Cemetery outside Mt. Olive where Mother Jones is buried.
Miners Parade Arriving at Mt Olive Cemetery 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Miners Day commemorates the tragic events of October 12, 1898, when union miners confronted the Chicago-Virden Coal Company at Virden over the arrival of strike-breakers. During a subsequent gun battle at the local railway station, a total of thirteen people died, eight miners and five company guards and some 40 miners were wounded.
Union Miners Cemetery at Mt. Olive, Photo: Mike Matejka.
However when Mount Olive town refused to allow some of the miners to use the cemetery, the miners purchased land just north of the town. The Union Miners Cemetery was thus established and remains the only union-owned cemetery in America. For the past 125 years people have gathered annually to remember those Virden miners.
Joann Condellone, a founding member of the Mother Jones Museum in Mt Olive and of the Perpetual Care Associaton of the Union Miners Cemetery welcomed all to the ceremony. The opening speaker, Tim Drea, the Illinois AFL-CIO President spoke of the vital contribution immigrants had made to the American Labour movement. Mary Harris was herself an immigrant from Ireland.
President of Illinois AFL-CIO, Tim Drea. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Highlight of the day was the appearance of Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) who spoke of the huge work which the union had contributed to ensuring pensions and health care for the miners. He called for a just transition for the communities impacted by the reduction and phase out of coal due to climate change.
President of the UMWA, Cecil Roberts speaking in Mt. Olive Cemetery. Photo: Mike Matejka.
President Roberts, whose great Grandmother Ma Blizzard was a close friend of Mother Jones and whose family supported the miners during the infamous Paint and Cabin Creek strikes in West Virginia during the “Coal Wars” of 1912-1914 gave an account of the impact on miners and their families and solidarity of those who fought for justice in those struggles.
Cecil Roberts with Joann Condellone. Photo: Mike Matejka.
In a prescient observation, President Roberts also recounted the burning of the miners’ union tent village by the Colorado National Guard and Mine company militia and the massacre of the women and children and men at Ludlow in Colorado one hundred and ten years ago. Many of those killed in Ludlow were immigrants from Greece.
Cecil Roberts with UMWA comrades: Photo: Mike Matejka.
He then concluded by quoting Mother Jones who spoke in her autobiography of the “dark story” of coal, and asked how in order for “life to have something of decency, something of beauty – a picture, a new dress, a bit of cheap lace lace fluttering in the window – for this, men who work down in the mines must struggle and lose, struggle and win.”
Loretta Williams as Mother Jones: Photo: Mike Matejka.Dale Hawkins as General Alexander Bradley. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The Daughters of Mother Jones at Mt. Olive Cemetery. Photo: Mike Matejka.
Loretta Williams and Dale Hawkins in period costume transformed into Mother Jones and union leader, English born “General” Alexander Bradley for the proceedings, while Wildflower Conspiracy provided music and union songs. Loretta attended the Spirit of Mother Jones festival in 2018. Wildflower Conspiracy sang the Children of MotherJones written and first performed by the late Cork singer/songwriter Pete Duffy at the 2014 Cork festival.
Wildflower Conspiracy: Erin O’Toole. Photo: Mike Matejka.
“Those in power showed her no sympathy In her fight to set the children free.
She lies in Mount Olive Illinois But Mother Jones’ true spirit never dies.”
Cecil Roberts, Dale Hawkins and Loretta Williams then honoured the miners of Virden by placing a wreath on the Virden miners grave.
Gathering at the Grave of Mother Jones, Sunday October 13th 2024. Photo: Mike Matejka.
The Cork Mother Jones committee wishes to thank Mike Matejka of the Illinois Labor History Society for permission to use some of his photographs. Our gratitude also to James Goltz of Mt Olive, a regular visitor to Cork, for all his assistance. We send our good wishes to Nelson Grman who has been involved with the Union Miners Cemetery Perpetual Care Committee for many decades.
Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), the Irish public broadcaster has reported that recent Oscar winner Cillian Murphy from Cork will star in and produce the film adaptation of Mark Bradley’s book, ‘BloodRuns Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America. (UMWA)
The report states that Murphy’s latest film project will concentrate on the terrible dark tale of corruption in the UMWA trade union in the 60s and early 70s under the leadership of Tony Boyle and the murder of the Yablonski family.
Yet during the long history of this great union, it has provided a beacon of hope and inspiration to hundreds of thousands of American union miners and their families over the past 130 years and had a unique Cork link in the connection with Mary Harris (Mother Jones), who was appointed the union’s first female organiser.
Founded in January 1890, the UMWA went on to become the largest, toughest and most powerful trade union in the history of the troubled American Industrial relations. Men such as Michael Moran, John McBride and Richard Davis along with thousands of miners forged the reputation of solidarity in this proud union.
Mary Harris was appointed a UMWA organiser in the late 1890s and from then until the early 1920s, she spent more time organising miners than any other group of workers. She became part of a large group of tough male union UMWA organisers, many of whom were Irish. Following the Lattimer Massacre in 1897 in which 19 miners were killed, John Mitchell, just twenty eight years old of Irish immigrant parents became the fifth president of the UMWA. He succeeded Michael Ratchford from Co Clare, who as president was the first to notice the organising ability of Mother Jones and hired her to become a UMWA “walking delegate”. John Mitchell later appointed her as a paid organiser in 1901 to try to unionise the difficult West Virginia coalfields.
John Mitchell, President of the UMWA, 1898- 1907
Over the next decade, Mother Jones became the most active, colourful, and outstanding union organiser during a period of violent industrial unrest which saw the UMWA call several national coal strikes to seek decent wages, safe conditions and shorter working hours. Mother Jones was directly involved in numerous strikes from Pittsburg, to West Virginia, to Arnot in Pennsylvania, to Colorado where she unionised thousands of miners as the UMW grew into the strongest and most diverse union in America. Later Jones played an active part in the Coal Wars in West Virginia and Colorado from 1912-1914 in which dozens perished in the brutal pitched battles between the miners and militias along with private detective firms paid by the mine owners.
Fred Mooney and Frank Keeney., officers of the UMWA in West Virginia.UMWA Banner. Source. James Goltz,
In July 1902, as a result of her union activities, Mother Jones was described in court as “the most dangerous woman in America.”. Later she fell out with President John Mitchell but each retained a great respect for each other. Today a large monument of John Mitchell stands in Scranton in Pennsylvania, the hometown of President Joe Biden. Very soon Mother Jones will have her own monument in the city of Chicago.
Monument to John Mitchell in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
In recent years the UMWA union membership has been much reduced due to the decline of the mining industry but it is now actively organising among other workers including the public sector.
The current president of the UMW is Cecil Roberts, who is the great-grandson of Ma Blizzard.
Cecil Roberts. Source (Wikipedia).
Ma Blizzard was a fearless union activist in Cabin Creek, West Virginia, and a great personal friend of Mother Jones during the Coal Wars. Her son Bill Blizzard was a miners leader at the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921.
Ma Sarah Blizzard.
President Roberts in a beautiful Proclamation, presented by James Goltz from Mt Olive, Illinois to the Cork Mother Jones Committee in 2014 expressed “special thanks and recognition to the remarkable annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival for keeping her Irish Spirit alive in her birthplace in County Cork, Ireland, in the Shandon area of Cork City”.
James Goltz from Mt Olive with the UMWA Proclamation to Cork at the 2017 Festival.
Proclamation to the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival from President of the UMWA, Cecil Roberts in 2017.
Speaking about Mother Jones, the UMWA Proclamation continued,
“We loved her and still love her. We call her the Miners’ Angel. Only an angel could have endured all of the suffering, hate and obstacles that the industrial masters hurled at her as she valiantly fought for the dignity, economic security and safety for mine workers and their families.”
extract from the Proclamation to the Spirit of mother jones festival from cecil roberts, president of the umwa.
The connection of the UMWA to Cork continues as we look forward to Oscar winning actor, Cillian Murphy playing the part of Chip Yablonski as he seeks justice for his coal mining father.
Delegate Badge to the 100th UMWA annual delegate conference in 1990, held in Miami, Florida.
Mother Jones passed away at 11.55pm on Sunday November 30th, 1930. This year marks the ninety third anniversary of her death. The death certificate stated it was due to senility. She was ninety three years old. A requiem mass was held for her at St Gabriel’s Church in Washington on the morning of December 3rd.
Mother Jones and friends with a birthday cake on her American birthday 1st May 1930. She had claimed to be one hundred years old, in reality, Mother Jones was ninety two at the time. Mother Jones lived on the farm run by Walter and Lillian Burgess at Old Powdermill Road, Hyattsville, near Washington DC, where this birthday party was held. Photo courtesy of Saul Schniderman.
Her remains were taken by railroad car to St. Louis Union Station and then the 40 miles onwards to Mount Olive. A band played “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as thousands of people awaited the transfer of her coffin to the Odd Fellows’ Hall. It lay in state until the memorial service on Sunday during which many thousands of workers, union officials and the curious filed past.
Thousands of union miners march in Mt Olive at the funeral of Mother Jones (Illinois Labor History Society).
The Ascension Church was packed for Fr John Maguire’s eulogy at 2pm, with thousands of miners gathered outside, packing the nearby streets listening on loudspeakers. On the morning of Monday, December 8th after 10:00 am Mass, her casket was then taken to Mount Olive Miners cemetery to her final resting place.
Union leaders carry the coffin of Mother Jones,
Old photos show an enormous gathering of people covering the large graveyard. Motion picture cameras record the huge funeral throngs.
Fr Maguire’s tribute opened with;
“today in gorgeous mahogany furnished and carefully guarded offices in distant capitals, wealthy mine owners and capitalists are breathing sighs of relief.
Today upon the plains of Illinois, the hillsides and valleys of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, in California, Colorado and British Columbia, strong men and toil worn women are weeping tears of bitter grief.
The reasons……….are the same. Mother Jones is dead.”
Fr. Maguire tribute.
It was hard to imagine that this frail Cork women was once branded as “the most dangerous woman in America”.
Thousands gather outside the Ascension Church, Mt Olive, Illinois.
The Leadville Irish Miners’ Memorial committee will hold a ribbon cutting and celebration of completion on September 16th next.
The striking memorial was constructed in memory of over 1100 Irish Immigrants, many from West Cork who lie nearby in unmarked graves.
The Leadville Miners Memorial (J. Goltz).
The Cemetery remembrance, high in the Rocky Mountains will include a reading of the names of those unfortunate immigrants and the formal unveiling of the memorial.
It will be followed later at the Tabor Opera House by “From Cork to Colorado”, a Leadville Style Revue. A delegation from Allihies in West Cork where many of the immigrants began their journey will attend. Mother Jones will be there too!
From Cork to Colorado (Tabor Opera House).
Mother Jones was familiar with the Rockefeller mine holdings in Southern Colorado, having been jailed in the State on several occasions during the Colorado Mine Wars in 1914.
“From January on until the final brutal outrage- the burning of the tent colony in Ludlow- my ears wearied with the stories of brutality and suffering. My eyes ached with the misery I witnessed. My brain sickened with the knowledge of man’s inhumanity to man”
The official completion of the Leadville Irish Miners’ Memorial organised by the Irish Network Colorado took place on Saturday 16th September 2023 in front of several hundred people.
Dreamed of by Kathleen Fitzsimmons and the Colorado Irish Roots organisation, created by Terry Brennan, now christened as “Liam O’Sullivan”, and the brainchild of Dr Jim Walsh of the University of Colorado, who discovered the burial place in the local Leadville Evergreen Cemetery of over a thousand poor Irish emigrant miners and their families including many children, this wonderful monument, high in the Rocky Mountains is a beacon for the Irish diaspora and the labour movement. Leadville is the highest elevated city in the United States.
Speaking at the completion, Dr Walsh said,
“At Ludlow, the workers were killed by bullets and kerosene, here they died from poverty. For the Labor community, these graves are now sacred, the people who lie here struggled to form unions – this is the breadbasket of the Colorado labor movement”
Irish Ambassador to the US, Geraldine Byrne Nason, Honorary Irish Consul, Jim Lyons and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet as well as other dignitaries, including the Mayor of Leadville, Gregory Labbe also attended.
The Irish Government had made a substantial grant towards the completion of this landmark monument.
The ceremony was also attended by Tadhg O’Sullivan and representatives from Allihies in West Cork, from where many of the miners originally departed for Leadville.
Further Funding for the Mother Jones Statue in Chicago
The Mother Jones Statue campaign announced on June 19 last that it has received a further $250,000 funding for the statue project at the Water Tower in Chicago.
Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago making the announcement
The years of work the Chicago Committee has invested in planning for a Mother Jones statue is getting closer to fruition and the Cork born labour and union organiser will soon grace the Chicago skyline.
It is particularly rewarding that this is part of a package in support of multiple projects of underrepresented peoples projects. The Mellon Foundation announced a grant of $6.8 million to The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) to support the Chicago Monuments Project (CMP) and citywide community-generated commemorative initiatives and installations.
The Plaza where the Mother Jones Statue will be erected.
The Mellon Foundation grant, in coordination with the Monuments Project, is part of a recent expansion of the Mother Jones project from the original plan. This is now a landmark project that will result in a much bigger impact.
The Mother Jones Monument project committee has now raised about $160,000 dollars and still needs about $40,000. The committee wishes to raise further funding to fulfil its share of the costs of this magnificent project, some $200,000 and continues to seek donations, including from Ireland. Congratulations to all for the hard work in organising the Mother Jones statue project from a dream to a reality.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee is proud to present the 1954 documentary Salt of the Earth at this year’s Festival. It will be shown on Thursday 27th July 2023 at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, beginning at 11:00 am.
Salt of the Earth is the story of a strike which is based on a 1951 strike in New Mexico.
Deemed “culturally significant” by the US Library of Congress,it is now preserved in the National Film Registry.
Source: Wikipedia.
On its release in 1954, the American Legion called for a nationwide boycott, it was denounced in the US House of Representatives, investigated by the FBI and the film set was attacked by vigilantes. As its writer Michael Wilson, director Herbert J Biberman and producer Paul Jarrico were all blacklisted in Hollywood in the McCarthy campaign against Communism, Salt of the Earth itself was also blacklisted and many cinemas refused to show it..
Due to financial constraints, a few professional actors such as Rosaura Revueltas as Esperanza Quintero (later deported to Mexico). Will Geer played the Sheriff, he was a socialist, a comrade of Woody Guthrie to whom he introduced Pete Seeger. (he is better known to Irish audiences as Grandpa in the Waltons). They were joined by miners from Local 890 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter workers. and their families in the cast. Juan Chacon who played Ramon Quintero was a union local official.
Rosaura Revueltas and Juan Chacon. Source: Wikipedia.
The blunt and austere realism of the strike is full on and direct in some emotional and powerful scenes. Crucially it embraces a unique feminist approach to union politics which was rare in the early 1950 cinema. The wives, family and widows of the miners rally to offer hope for the future of migrant workers.
The earlier efforts of Mother Jones to assist the Mexican trade unions and support the Mexican Revolution is especially relevant
In spite of production difficulties and the quality, this film remains long in one’s mind due to its honesty, its realism and the common human story of labour injustice it displays as the participants strive to tell the story of the union activists and the strike.
Even the biblical origins of its title, Salt of the Earth did not prevent its condemnation in some quarters as communist propaganda. Yet its message lives on as a brave political statement in opposition to the rampant McCarthyism which prevented progressive film making, culture and the arts in America. That it survives and endures almost 70 years later is testament to the everlasting story of workers organising to fight injustice.
Salt of the Earth will be shown on Thursday morning 27th July 2023 at 11:00 am at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon followed by a discussion. Running time 90 minutes.
A Mother Jones Birthday party will take place on Sunday 30th April from 3 – 5 pm at the Irish American Heritage Centre in Chicago.
It will feature Liz Carroll, (fiddle), Brendan and Siobhan Mc Kinney (pipes and Flute), Kathy Cowan, vocalist and Mother Jones, Brigid Duffy. In attendance also will be Sarah Keating, Vice Consul of Ireland in Chicago.
Karen White of the NEA. (Source: Mother Jones Heritage).Kathy Cowan. (Source: Mother Jones Heritage)
Karen White of the National Education Association will speak to issues of the exploitation of children on this the 120th Anniversary of the march of the Mill Children led by Mother Jones in 1903.
Fundraising is proceeding for the erection of the new Mother Jones Monument in Chicago.
Meanwhile about 250 miles further south in the town of Mt. Olive, the burial place of Mother Jones an International Mother Jones Festival takes place also on Sunday 30th April. It will be held at the Union Miners Cemetery beginning at 12 noon and continuing afterwards at the Mother Jones Museum on Main Street.
Speakers and artists include the Consul-General of Ireland in Chicago, Kevin Byrne. Tim Drea, President of the Illinois AFL/CIO and Brother Jerome Lewnard of the Viatorian Order. Music will be provided by Wildflower Conspiracy along with a number of other bands. Loretta Williams will participate as Mother Jones and historian, Dale Hawkins will also take part.
Further details call 618-659-8759.
Congratulations to all involved and best wishes from Cork for the May Day American Birthday celebrations for Mother Jones.
Note: The American celebrations have traditionally taken place around May Day which was the day, Mother Jones gave as her birthday, however her real birth date was probably 31st July 1837 as she was baptised at the North Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne in Cork on the 1st August of that year.
Credit: Consul General of Ireland, Chicago.Credit: Mother Jones Museum, Chicago
Photo 1: Kevin Byrne Consul General of Ireland, Chicago with Tim Drea, President of the AFL-CIO in Illinois at Mount Olive Cemetery on the 30th May 2023.
Photo 2: Rosemary Feurer of the Mother Jones Museum, Chicago making a presentation of a limited edition artwork by Lindsay Hand, “Chicago March 1915” to Karen White, speaker at the May Day Chicago Celebration of Mother Jones.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee is pleased to announce the dates for the 2023 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Our 12th Annual festival will be held in and around Shandon in Cork City from Thursday 27th to Saturday 29th July 2023. All are welcome.
Thanks to our sponsors, the festival remains open to all free of charge. We are promising a very interesting selection of speakers and topics. Further announcements will appear regularly on this website and on the festival Facebook pages.
Hope to see you all and thanks to everyone for your support for this very unique festival.
Mother Jones in 1909 enjoying a chat with her friend, Terence B. Powderly, whose family was from Co. Meath, Ireland. (Illinois Labor History Society).
Terence V Powderly (1849-1924) started life as a 13 year old railroad worker where he worked as an apprentice in a machine shop. Born in Pennsylvania, Terence’s people were from Co Meath in Ireland.
Having joined the trade union movement, he became a moderate head of the Knights of Labor in 1879. This “Order” grew to having about three-quarters of a million members by the mid 1880s, but subsequently went into rapid decline due the growing radicalism and militancy of the new trade unions and the oppression of the growing industrial corporations which treated workers very badly.
Powderly, who originally lived in Scranton in Pennsylvania went on to hold a number of government posts until his death in 1924.
Mother Jones, although regarded as a radical became great friends with Terence and his wife Emma for several decades and stayed at their homes in Scranton and in Washington with them when visiting those cities.
On Wednesday, December 24th, Christmas Eve 1913, in Calumet, Michigan, seventy-three men, women, and children, mainly striking mine workers and their families, were crushed to death in a stampede in what became known as the Italian Hall Disaster.
At a crowded Christmas party organise for the children of copper miners, who had been on strike in the local mines since July 23rd of that year, someone shouted “fire” at the entrance to the hall. There was no fire!
Hundreds of people were in the second floor room at the Italian Hall enjoying the miners party. Toys were being distributed to the children by Santa. On hearing the shout from downstairs, there was a huge panic and a mass rush down a steep narrow stairs to the exit which caused multiple deaths, especially among the children.
Italian Hall: (Wikipedia) John William NaraThe Italian Hall today: (Wikipedia)
The strike had earlier been called by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) seeking union recognition and an improvement in wages and working conditions. Mother Jones had visited Calumet in early August to show her support for the workers, before she became embroiled in the Colorado Coal Wars.
Mother Jones visits Calumet in August 1913. Courtesy of Jeremiah Mason of the National Park Service.
The Arrival of Mother Jones in Calumet in 1913. Courtesy of Jeremiah Mason of the National Park Service.
The mine owners in Copper Country refused to talk to the union members and the long and bitter strike continued until March 1914 in spite of this tragedy. Later investigations failed to reveal exactly who had wrongly called out “fire” which started the panic. Mother Jones blamed an anti union “law and order crowd” in the Calumet region for the false fire call which led to the deaths and repeatedly mentioned this dreadful tragedy in later speeches.
The sad and harrowing scenes in the town of Calumet on Christmas Day and over the 1913 Christmas period as the bodies of over 60 children were brought back to their homes left a lasting mark on witnesses. Photos from the time show lines of wooden white caskets. The Red Jacket Town Hall became a morgue, while the massive funeral procession down snow covered Fifth Street to Lakeview Cemetery was heart-breaking. Following several speeches from the strike leaders, the deceased were laid to rest in two mass grave sites.
The disaster at the Italian Hall was memorialised by singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie when in 1940 he wrote the “1913 Massacre”, in which he blamed the copper mines bosses of the Copper Country for the deaths.
“The piano played a slow final tune, And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon, The parents they cried and the miners they moaned, “See what your greed for money has done””
Candles are lit each Christmas Eve at the local park in Calumet, let us remember them too!
Our thanks to Jeremiah Mason of the National Parks Service, Lake Superior Management Centre at Keweenaw National Historical Park at Calumet.
