Elliott J. Gorn

A very interesting history of an interesting woman. Her husband and four children died of yellow fever-a mother who had come from Cork during the great famine. Her insistence that unions/labor were a class issue comes from that early loss. For her race didn’t (much) come into it. Slaves wages and conditions were slave wages and conditions no matter the man. Her resistance to the suffragettes movement is understood properly as a world view in which the family and community is central. Voting was not an important issue to her. She never got to vote, but was powerful all the same. In her mind the economic stability of the family which allowed for a mother to raise the children rather than everyone-father, mother, and children having to work, was the world she herself had been robbed of and the world that she toiled endless to bring about. The world changed out from under her making this idea dated but she remains admirable in her achievement and tireless energy for working class people.… (más)

I became interested in finding out more about Mother Jones while reading about the Blair Mountain coal strike. I'm so glad this biography was the one I chose to read. Mr. Gorn has done an excellent job of piecing together Mary Jones's life in spite of little documentation of her life before she reached late middle age. And, in spite of much of the fictitious information circulating about her -- both malicious slander and Mary's own stories about her life. She lied about her age, and probably about her involvement in several events. Mr. Gorn is able to find the grains of truth among the stories. This book provides the right blend of contextual information and Mother Jones's story. So, not only did I learn about Mother Jones, I also learned a lot about the early union movement in the U.S. and about socialism in the U.S.

Mother Jones is an inspirational person. She was committed to the union movement and to rights for workers and their families. She had little formal education and suffered great personal tragedy, but managed to do a lot of good through determination and a genuine caring for people.

Definitely worth reading.… (más)