The enormous immigration from Europe crowded the slums, forced down wages and threatened to destroy the standard of living fought for by American working men.'

In all the great industrial centers the working class was in rebellion.

'I became wholly engrossed in the labor movement. 'By 1880,' she said in The Autobigraphy of Mother Jones, While working as a dressmaker, Jones developed an interest in improving the conditions of laborers, after witnessing the disparity between the lifestyle of the “aristocrats of Chicago” and that of the jobless poor walking the streets. Again, misfortune struck when the great Chicago fire of 1871 destroyed her home, shop and all of her belongings. Mary Harris Jones returned to Chicago, where she opened a dressmaking shop. Tragedy struck when a yellow fever epidemic broke out in 1867 and everyone in the family but Mary succumbed. She once said, 'The wife must care for what the husband cares for, if he is to remain resolute.' The Joneses had four children.

During her short marriage, Jones learned about unions and the psychology of laborers, which she later imparted to the wives of laborers. George Jones was an iron moulder and member of the Iron Moulders` Union. Jones returned to teaching when she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she met and married her husband, George Jones, in 1861. She taught there for eight months, after which she moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she became a dressmaker. His work as a laborer on the railway construction crews took him to Toronto, Canada, where Jones was reared.Īfter receiving her teaching certificate in Toronto at age 20, Jones landed a position at a convent in Monroe, Michigan. Richard Harris, Jones` father, came to the United States in 1835, and after receiving citizenship, set about bringing the rest of his family to this country. Jones is best known for her struggles to win decent living and working conditions for the United Mine Workers, and her participation in the Haymarket Day demonstration for the eight-hour day movement in Chicago in 1886. Born on August 1, 1837, to past generations of freedom fighters in Cork, Ireland, Mary Harris Jones was known as the 'white-haired `Mother` Jones' of the labor movement, from 1880 through the early 1920s.

Mary harris jones autobiography