Mother Jones died at the Burgess farm in Maryland at 11.55pm on November 30th 1930.
Mother Jones at Lillian Burgess’ Farm. Left to Right: Mr. Burgess, Mother Jones and Burt Fowler.
Mother Jones and Lillie Burgess on Sept 16th 1930, just before Mother Jones died.
Her funeral was attended by tens of thousands of union workers. Father William Sweeney celebrated mass for the repose of her soul at St. Gabriel’s Roman Catholic Church in Washington on Wednesday, 3rd December 1930.
The casket was then placed on the Baltimore and Ohio train and was transported by rail following the route taken by the train bearing the remains of Abraham Lincoln to Springfield in 1866. From St Louis’s Union Station, the casket bearing Mother Jones was placed on the Wabash train to Mount Olive. It was taken to the Odd Fellows Hall in the town where it lay in state for a further three days. Thousands of miners and their families called to pay their respects.
Media reports state that up to 40,000 trade unionists and working people swamped the town over the three days in what was probably the largest gathering for a funeral of a woman trade unionist in history. Women could not ascend the formal male career ladder of trade unionism at the time and so Mother Jones remained a front line union organiser especially in the early 1900s.
The crowds of miners gather in Mt Olive.
Yet her leadership of miners, her fearless approach to union organising and her moral authority among working class people remained without parallel. Her fearlessness and courage had made her a legend, and so almost a decade after she took a back seat from union activity, when she was over 80 years old, her funeral provoked a massive response from workers everywhere.
They remembered, we remember too after ninety five years.
The reponse is probably best summed up by Fr. John Maguire
Father Maguire, a labour activist, spoke in his oration at the funeral of Mother Jones.
“Sometimes, she used language that a polite family journal could not print, sometimes she used methods that made the righteous grieve……But let it be remembered that she was, after all, human. Her faults were the excesses of her courage, her love of justice, the love in her mother’s heart. Today in gorgeous mahogany furnished and carefully guarded offices in distant capitals, wealthy mine owners and capitalists are breathing sighs of relief. Today among 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 reason for this contrasting relief and sorrow is the same.
Mother Jones is dead!”
Author, Edward M. Steel editor “The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones (1988 University of Pittsburg Press) in his afterword described the final public “birthday” appearance of Mother Jones on 1st May 1930.
“Although she had been confined to bed for weeks, on 1st May she summoned up the energy to move from her upstairs bedroom to a rocking chair under the apple tree in the yard (of the Burgess farm), where all day long she opened telegrams and letters, received visitors, reminisced with old friends, bantered with reporters, and presided over the cutting of the five-tiered birthday cake supplied by the bakers’ union.
Mother Jones with her birthday cake. Photo: Courtesy of Saul Schniderman.
Many labour leaders in their Washington HQ had conspired to make the day a success and Paramount sent a crew to film the festivities. When she spoke into their microphones, she probably addressed more people than she had in years of street gatherings and public addresses.”
Mother Jones.
The New York Times report the next day contains the longest quotation from her fiery birthday remarks:
Out on the lawn she faced the talking picture cameras, took a deep breath and a drink of water, and began an impromptu speech which brought loud applause and sent the nearby circling crows wheeling back to the woods. A dog enjoying a nap in the May sunshine jumped to his feet as the white-haired labor leader said in a ringing voice:
“America was not founded on dollars but on the blood of men who gave their lives for your benefit. Power lies in the hands of labor to retain American liberty, but labor has not yet learned how to use that power. A wonderful power is in the hands of women, too but they don’t know how to use it. Capitalists sidetrack the women into clubs and make ladies of them. Nobody wants a lady, they want women. Ladies are parlour parasites.”
Baptism Font at the North Cathedal in Cork where Mother Jones was baptised on the 1st August 1837. At the rear is St. Joseph the worker, a carving by Ken Thompson.Burial place of Mother Jones in Mt. Olive. Photo: James Goltz. Note: The Irish flag flies over her grave.
Later on in the day in a TV recording which still exists, she said in her singsong accent which betrayed her Cork roots:
“You know I am considered a Bolshevik, a Red and an IWW and a Radical. And I admit to being all they’ve charged me. I’m anything that would change moneyed civilization to a higher and grander civilization for the ages to come. And I long to see the day when Labour will have the destination of the nation in her own hands and she will stand as a united force and show the world what the workers can do.”
Mother Jones
In an earlier letter from Mother Jones dated November 12th 1928, she had made a special request to the miners of Mt. Olive.
“When the last call comes for me to take my final rest, will the miners see that i get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives on the hills of Virden Illinois, on the morning of October 12th 1898. For their heroic sacrifice for their fellow men they are responsible for Illinois being one of the best organised labor states in America. I hope it will be my consolation when I pass away, to feel that I sleep under the clay with those brave boys.”
This Union Miners Cemetery was founded in Mt. Olive in 1898. As well as the Virden dead, many activists of the Progressive Miners’ of America (P.M.A) lie buried in this unique resting place. Among those who have been buried there recently include singer songwriter, and union activist, Anne Feeney, who performed in a concert at the 2014 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in Shandon, Cork. In 1936, members of the Progressive Miners’ of America erected a large monument with two bronze statues and a 20 foot pillar over the grave of Mother Jones at its center. It was unveiled on the 11th October 1936 and more then 50,000 people attended the ceremony.
The 14th Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School will be formally launched by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Fergal Dennehy on Friday 4th July at 1:00 pm at the Maldron Hotel in Shandon.
We look forward to welcoming the wonderful Choir Kalyna as they perform songs from their homeland to this event.
We are all looking forward to an exciting international festival beginning in just three weeks time on Thursday 24th and continuing to Saturday 26th.
It is packed with talks, walks, songs, music and theater all to celebrate the inspirational spirit of Mother Jones. All are welcome.
Festival programmes are available in the local libraries and many shops around Cork.
United States senator Bernie Sanders and Jane O’Meara Sanders arrived on Shandon Street to huge applause today.
Waiting for Bernie on Shandon Street. J. Nolan.
Bernie and Jane were paying a courtesy call to the Spirit of Mother Jones HQ on Shandon Street where they met members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee and friends of our festival. James and Marie Nolan welcomed our American guests to their local butcher shop which has been on the street since the 1800s and has served as the gathering point for planning the festival which has been held annually since 2012. James is one of the founder members of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Left to Right: James Nolan, Jane O’Meara Sanders, Senator Bernie Sanders and Marie Nolan. Photo (Mary Dineen).
Bernie stepped inside the counter and admitted that this was a first for him in his career as the longest serving Independent senator in United States congressional history. He examined a wide selection of Cork products and checked out the local bodice.
Is that enough bodice for your tea? Photo: Angela Flynn.
Cork Mother Jones Committee member Ann Piggott then proceeded to make a number of presentations to the Sanders family. Among the items was a copy of the Frameworks Films produced Mother Jones and Her Children, a festival poster and Elliott J. Gorn’s biography of Mother Jones.
In addition Ann produced some Cork treats of a bottle of Tanora, chester cakes (donkeys gudge) and some Tayto crisps, as a symbol of a special Cork welcome which she presented to the Sanders and were very appreciated by Bernie and Jane.
Bernie with Mother Jones Committee at presentation. Photo (Mary Dineen).
During a brief account of the extraordinary and long life of Mother Jones by committee member Ger O’Mahony, a number of interesting connections between Bernie and the Mother Jones family were revealed. Back in May 26th 2015 Bernie Sanders made his formal announcement that he was running for president of the United States on the waterfront park on Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont which he had helped to create while he was the proud Mayor first elected in 1981 of his hometown. He was re-elected three times during his tenure and served until 1989 after which he was elected to Congress.
Exactly a decade after announcing his presidential run, almost to the day (27th May 2025), Bernie Sanders was standing in Shandon, the home of Mother Jones.
Amazingly it was from here in Shandon in the heart of Cork City that Richard Harris and his son Richard junior, the father and brother of Mary Harris (Mother Jones) left to go to Canada on the infamous coffin ships in the late 1840s, probably during “Black 47”. According to author Elliott Gorn, the Harris men first appeared in the 1850 US census as living in Vermont in Bernie’s own town Burlington. Boarding with a local family, they were described as Illiterate and propertyless. In an era of fluid borders, the Harris’s had initially travelled into the United States to Burlington just over the border from Canada where they spent some time after emigrating from Cork .
By the time Richard’s wife Ellen Harris along with the remaining family members including Mary arrived from Ireland in the early 1850s, the Harris family had left Burlington and moved back to Canada to Bathurst Street in Toronto, where young Mary Harris grew up and was educated.
Jane and Bernie at the Mother Jones plaque for the first time. Photo (Angela Flynn).
Everyone then strolled through the ancient and historic streets of Shandon where a young Mary Harris may have walked to assemble at the plaque of Mother Jones erected in 2012 by the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Jane and Bernie. The famous Shandon Bells can be seen in the background. Photo by Angela Flynn.
From underneath the plaque Bernie addressed the crowd,
” Now is the time to fight for the living. Seeing massive concentrations of wealth and power of a handful of multi-billionaires who literally want to control not just the United States but the entire world, who couldn’t care less about working people……they want it all”
“It is imperative that we stand together as what we see in the United States today will be in Europe and Ireland tomorrow”.
Bernie Sanders. Photo: Mary Dineen.
Calling for international solidarity he continued
“We must remember our common humanity, all the children of the world have a right to live, with food and with education, security and that we must strive for a world of peace and not war. There is an enormous amount of work in front of us, Let’s stand together and let’s do it.”
Jane added
“It’s wonderful to be here to commemorate Mother Jones. What she stood for in terms of workers rights in terms of protection of the children is very much in our feeling of what are the priorities of life. Thank you for welcoming us to Cork on such an auspicious occasion”
Committee member William Hammond then sang the ballad of Joe Hill and concluded with a rendering of Salonika to rapturous applause.
And the meeting concluded with the traditional whiskey toast at the Mother Jones plaque led by Bernie and Jane.
Toast to Mother Jones at the plaque. Bernie, Jane and members of the Cork Mother Jones Committee (Photo by Andrew Desmond).Bernie Sanders at the Mother Jones plaque. Photo: Angela Flynn.President Michael D. Higgins with US Senator, Bernie Sanders.Bernie and Jane with the local community Gardaí. Photo: Angela Flynn.
The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival takes place from Thursday 24th July until Saturday 26th July 2025.
Full programme of events will be available on this site by mid June or thereabouts.
Recently a new marker was added to the story of Mother Jones at her burial place in Mt Olive Union Miners Cemetery in Illinois.
Dr Helaine Silverman of the Dept. of Anthropology at the University of Illinois unveiled a new marker at the location where Mother Jones was originally buried in December 1930.
Mt Oliver Marker, Dr Silverman (Photo by Whitney DeMartini).
Following her research the University of Illinois through its Mythis Mississippi Project which advocates the use of cultural heritage resources to assist community development erected the informative marker at the location with the support of the Mt Olive Perpetual Care Committee.
Original grave-site of Mother Jones. (Photo by Whitney DeMartini).Scott Thomas, President of the UMWA Local 1613 speaking in Mt Olive Cemetery at the unveiling of the marker.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee has written to Dr. Silverman to thank her for her efforts to promote Mother Jones as part of the Mythic Mississippi Project.
There are two celebrations for Mother Jones in America over the next few days. An American birthday for Mother Jones takes place in Chicago on Sunday 27th April 2025 from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Irish American Heritage Centre. A great afternoon of music, speakers and performers with Chicago’s Mother Jones, Brigid Duffy attending. Among those appearing are Beatriz Ponce de Leon, Deputy Mayor for Immigrant, Migrant and Refugee Rights, Keith Ricardson, American Postal Workers Union, and Kathy Hanshew, Chicago Worker United.
The 4th annual International Mother Jones Festival is set for Sunday, May 4, from 1 pm to 5 pm in downtown Mt. Olive, IL, and in Union Miners’ Cemetery, where Jones is buried.
Included in the event is Music by Casting Runes, Wildflower Conspiracy, and Piasa Canyon. For the young at heart, there will be a magic and medicine show by Dr. Longhair, Randy Thompson, the Macoupin County Art Collective or MAC, plus performances by Loretta Williams as Jones for the young and old alike. Williams is the only MJ actor to portray her in both the country and place of her birth, City Cork, Ireland and at her final resting place in UMC. She will have a special program in the library. In case of inclement weather, the downtown activities will move inside the City Hall and library.
On behalf of the Cork Mother Jones Committee, we wish both events every success and congratulate all the organisers.
While on his recent travels, James Goltz of Mt Olive visited an exhibition at the Yuma Arizona prison museum. The exhibition included a photograph of Mother Jones and information about some of the Mexican revolutionaries which she had assisted. It also mentioned that Mother Jones had addressed a meeting of socialists in the Arizona area in 1909 and had brought a sum of some $4,000 raised by the US trade unions to help defend the Mexican revolutionaries imprisoned in the United States.
Mother Jones at the Yuma Arizona Prison Exhibition, courtesy of James Goltz.
One of the constant if less well appreciated themes of the life of Mother Jones was her endless campaigning for the release of political revolutionaries especially the Mexicans imprisoned in U.S. jails. The revolutionaries opposed the anti-union authoritarian government of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz* whose autocratic regime from 1884 to 1911, promoted U.S. investment through low taxes, compliant courts, a lack of labour regulations and the banning of trade unions. These industrial ” Wall Street pirates and robber barons” as described by Mother Jones were extracting the oil and mineral wealth of Mexico using low cost labour to enrich themselves. The Cananea miners strike of 1906 had been broken by the Mexican army of Diaz in cooperation with the Arizona Rangers.
The main Mexican opposition movement was the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) , some of whose leaders such as Ricardo Magon, Antonio Villareal, Manuel Sarabia and Librado Rivera had fled to the U.S. to avoid execution and imprisonment. The PLM backed the Mexican trade unions and US trade unions including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) had found common cause with this revolutionary movement in order to prevent Mexican labour from undercutting US union workers in the mines and mills, especially in Arizona.
Mexican Revolutionaries at the Yuma Arizona Prison Courtesy of James Goltz.
Mother Jones took up the cause of the Mexicans. She organised many protests, addressed meetings raising substantial monies to pay for the defence of those who had been arrested by the US government and imprisoned for breaking America’s neutrality laws. She argued that these men fought for the cause of labour in the same way the American unions were doing and urged international labour solidarity. She even took their case to President William Howard Taft who did nothing. Interestingly, she compared the activities of the revolutionary Mexicans in America to the revolutionary Irish Fenian and republican movements of the Irish in America who were attempting to secure independence from England.
Richardo Magon, (C) Wikipedia.
The Mexicans were eventually released from prison in Arizona in August 1910. Early in 1911, an uprising deposed President Portfirio Diaz and the new Mexican government led by Francisco Madero restored democracy and trade union rights. Mother Jones and officials from the United Mine Workers and WFM visited Mexico soon afterwards in October 1911 to congratulate the new government.
Later in 1921 she again returned twice to Mexico where she was treated as a hero ‘Madre Juanita” due to her work for democracy and trade union rights in a Mexico where competing armed factions remained volatile, She addressed the Pan-American Federation of Labor and visited friends such as Antonio Villarreal whom she had helped back in 1909 and who was now the Minister for Agriculture. Mother Jones enjoyed the adulation of Mexican workers and hospitality during her visit.
Antonio Villarreal. (c) Wikipedia.
She had certainly earned the honour as a result of her endless campaigning for the rights of Mexicans imprisoned in the United States over several decades.
The following is an extract from a leaflet of a radical and a speech from 1908 about the Mexican situation which resonates politically today by Mother Jones.
(as quoted in Mother Jones Speaks by Philip S Foner.)
“Now it is the United States government seconding the murderous despotism of Russia and the irresponsible dictatorship of Mexico. The fight has become international; yet it centres in the United States. If these foreign vultures of oppression win now, then our liberty goes.
For Diaz and American capitalism are partners! Pierpont Morgan (a wealthy banker) goes to Russia and shakes hands with the czar; and now the czar comes to America demanding the surrender of political refugees. Mrs Diaz, when visiting in Texas is entertained by members of the Copper Queen syndicate, whose headquarters are at 95 John Street, New York, and Elihu Root, of New York (a Wall Street lawyer) is wined and dined by the tyrant dictator Diaz, when in New York”
Source of material.
Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. Elliott J.Gorn provides an account of Mother Jones efforts on behalf of the Mexicans.
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.
Mother Jones is remembered for many things, for her bravery, her resilience, her support for the unionisation of all workers especially women, her leadership of the March of the Mill Children and so much more.
March of the Mill Children. Shandon 2019. Photo: Claire Stack.
And yet her enduring spirit remains relevant and very much alive across the world mainly as a result of a simple sentence addressed to poor miners standing in a dark field in West Virginia, over 120 years ago… According to her autobiography, Mother Jones went to speak one night to a mining town in the Fairmont district in West Virginia.
Daughters of Mother Jones at the Durham Gala.Photo: Courtesy of Mother Jones Heritage Project, Chicago.
She discovered that the meeting was to be held in a church. On entering she discovered that the priest was collecting money from the union miners presumably for the rent of the church in which the meeting was taking place.
‘I reached over and took the money from the priest. Then I turned to the miners. “Boys , this is a praying institution. You should not commercialize it”
She led the union miners out to a nearby field, in front of a school and held the meeting. Pointing to the school, she advised them to hold their meetings at the school declaring
” Your organisation is not a praying institution. It’s a fighting institution. It’s an educational institution along industrial lines.
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!”
Source: The Autobiography of Mother Jones, Chapter V1 War in West Virginia. Charles H Kerr Publishing Company. Page 41.
Those profound words of Mother Jones at a little town in Fairmont, West Virginia in 1902 remain so powerful that over 120 years later they continue to echo through history wherever union members and people gather to fight for justice and human rights.
It’s been uttered by presidents, on banners in the US Congress, printed on posters, written on plaques and walls in union halls, quoted by trade unions across the world and by social justice and human rights organisations in countless articles….it has become a rallying call for many especially during Covid, and recently at Palestinian support demonstrations, imprinted on awards, painted on union banners at strike picket lines.
Demonstration by Jewish union members against the genocide in Gaza.
The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins in paying tribute to the front line workers quoted it to praise and generate public support for their brave efforts to combat Covid-19 in April 2020.
Source: US Department of Labor.
Organisations from Oxfam to Greenpeace, many peace and justice organisations and the Justice for the Stardust 48 Campaign have repeated this battle-cry. Its global reach stretches from the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) to SIPTU (formerly the Irish Transport and General Workers Union of Connolly and Larkin) in Ireland and to the Washington State Nurses Union.
The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union on International Workers Memorial Day.Washington State Nurses Association.
The front page of the New York Times (23rd April 1972) contained the quote. when reporter George Vecsey described the pop art wall posters with a picture of Mother Jones when he visited Appalachia. A few days later a “Mother Jones Day” organised by Miners for Democracy took place in Pursglove, West Virginia. It was addressed by Kenneth “Chip” Yablonski, son of murdered union leader Jock Yablonski who urged the miners to reclaim democratic control of their union, the UMWA, in which Mother Jones was one of its first organisers under then President John Mitchell.
The New York Times 23rd April 1972.
Variations of the cry such as “mourn the dead” or “remember the dead” rather than the original “pray for the dead ” are also used. A wonderful documentary written and performed by Kaiulani Lee called Fight Like Hell: The Testimony of Mother Jones has been produced. Controversially, the growing use of the phrase “fight like hell” by the Right has increased in recent times. We must reclaim those passionate words, which reflect the communal ideas of Mother Jones, first spoken back near Fairmont all those years ago to the union miners gathered at the dead of night in that field.
Source: Library of Congress.
Historian Elliott Gorn in the introduction to his book, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America mentioned that the words “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living” are all that most people know of Mother Jones.
As long as her words resonate as a call to action wherever in the world people struggle for social justice then Mother Jones lives on.
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.
