a film by Frameworks Films and the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Release Date: July 2014.
Runtime: 52 min.
| Ger Omah |  8:00 AM (39 minutes ago) | ||
| to me | |||
“Mother Jones and her Children”
a film by Frameworks Films and the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Release Date: July 2014.
Runtime: 52 min.
Mother Jones and Her Children tells the story of Mary Harris (1837 – 1930) from Cork who went on to become “the most dangerous woman in America”.
Starting with her early years in Cork, this documentary goes on to detail her life in America following the famine where she trained as a teacher and a seamstress, her marriage to a union man George Jones and the birth of her four children in Memphis.
It tells of the tragedies which befell her. The loss of her four children and her husband to Yellow Fever in 1867 would have broken most people, yet as a 30 year old widow on her own, she kept on working and living. Even after her clothes business was burned in the Chicago Fire of 1871 she survived and began to immerse herself in the growing labour movement in America.
She joined the “Knights of Labour”, and became active in that organisation which preceded the growth of the actual trade union movement. Many Irish joined trade unions and became active in the trade union structures, their vast contribution to the story of labour and its positive impact on the conditions of working people and on the quality of their lives remains largely untold and unrecognised in Ireland.
Mary Jones was unique in that she was one of the first female trade union organisers and her involvement in the struggles of the miners has become the stuff of Legend. She defended the rights of children and workers and this is detailed in the documentary. Her organisation of the March of the Mill Children in 1903 contributed to the eventual banning of child labour from the mines, mills and factories of America.
Mother Jones became a national figure, a woman who was fearless, but was feared in the gorgeous mahogany furnished boardrooms of America. After decades of activism, she died on 30th November 1930 at the age of 93 and is buried in Mt Olive Union Cemetery in Illinois.
Through interviews with leading experts on Mother Jones, we learn of her fearless and tireless campaign to organise workers at a time of severe labour strife and her international legacy today.
This documentary will be shown at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon on Thursday 23rd July 2026 at 11:00 am.
It will be followed by a presentation by Dr. Ed Lahiff on the life of Mother Jones as based on the book published by Professor Elliott J. Gorn in 2001 entitled Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman In America. There will be time for a discussion afterwards.
