Mother Jones Museum m"

A virtual museum and curricula about the amazing labor agitator, Mother Jones

Bibliography

Biography of Mother Jones

Elliott J. Gorn, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America (Hill and Wang, 2002). Short Excerpt from Gorn's book

The leading biography of Mother Jones, and the main historian source for our film. Gorn's analysis allows us the best understanding of how Mother Jones created herself within the context of gender norms and labor upheavals, and situates her in the context of the violent response of corporate and state authorities to the miners' search for just living conditions and free speech.

Mary Harris Jones, Autobiography of Mother Jones (Charles Kerr, 1999). On-Line edition

Mother Jones' life as dictated to Clarence Darrow's secretary. Read alongside Gorn's book it is doubly interesting, both for understanding Gorn's revising of Mother Jones' rendition of her life, but also for the issue of memory and biography itself. For high school students, this is much more engaging than Gorn's book, but students should be cautioned about the issues of biography and memory.

Wake, Dorothy L. Mother Jones, Revolutionary Leader of Labor & Social Reform (2001)

Addresses Mother Jones connections to traditions of revolutionary syndicalism, thereby also allowing us to understand her as a feminist. Revises the sometimes condescending version of her as a folksy figure who was anti-feminist.

Leslie F. Orear, ed. Mother Jones and the Union Miners Cemetery: Mt. Olive, Illinois

a compilation of articles, available from the Illinois Labor History Society

Mother Jones Speeches and Correspondence

Philip S. Foner, Mother Jones Speaks: Speeches and Writings of a Working-Class Fighter (Pathfinder Press (NY), 1995).

A good selection of classic Mother Jones speeches..

Edward M. Steel, The Correspondence of Mother Jones (Univ of Pittsburgh Pr (Txt), 1985).

Needs to be used besides biography by Elliott Gorn. However, the introduction is a wonderful resource for those who don't have the time to read either her biography or Gorn's biography.

Edward M. Steel, ed. The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones (Univ of Pittsburgh Pr 1988).

More comprehensive than Foner's work, a terrific compilation. The introductionof this book is a wonderful resource for those who don't have the time to read either her biography or Gorn's biography

Repression in labor disputes

Stephen H. Norwood, Strikebreaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth-Century America (The University of North Carolina Press, 2002).

This book is an excellent introduction to the history of the use of private and public police forces in American labor disputes. It is excellent companion to the movie Matewan. It discusses the use of Baldwin Felts agents as well as national guard, two issues that arise in the Mother Jones film.

Patricia Cayo Sexton. The War on Labor and the Left. (Westview Press, 1992).

This is a terrific source that places the repression of the U.S. labor movement in comparative context. For those who assume that the U.S. must have a better record on free speech and freedom of assembly for workers, this book is a definite eye-opener

Robert Michael Smith. From Blackjacks to Briefcases: A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States (2003)

As the book's title suggests, this is a book that connects the use of agents such as Baldwin-Felts with a longer history of the use of private mercenaries that suppressed free speech. The main problem with the book is that it doesn't connect the private use of these with the public use. The key issue in Ludlow was the overlap between private and public use of police forces to suppress workers rights.

Ludlow

Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (see also the children's version in that section) Link to excerpt

Scott Martelle, Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West (Rutgers University Press, 2007).

The most recent book about Ludlow. See Martelle's website about the book, with links to other sites

George S. McGovern and Leona Guttridgerd F. , The Great Coalfield War (University Press of Colorado, 1996).

A good narrative history, with maps, etc. Updated by Martelle, but this is readily available.

Zeese Papanikolas, Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre (University of Nebraska Press, 1991).

Focuses on the leader of the Greek miners, a powerful story of the ethnic context

Leon Stein, Massacre at Ludlow: four reports (Arno, 1971).

These unedited primary source reprints from 1914 Ludlow investigations are extraordinarily good sources for students to plumb the context of Ludlow, the use of the national guard in Colorado and the Baldwin Felts agents.

Long, Priscilla Where the Sun Never Shines (Harcourt, 1989)

Chapter 12 of the book contains a compelling narrative of the events.

Anthony DeStefanis, Violence and the Colorado National Gaurd: Masculinity, Race, Class and Identity in the 1913-1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike

p 195-212 of Mining Women: Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1870 to 2005 ed. Gier and Mercier. Give good overview of the defense of the actions taken by the national guard. Read alongside Stein for more context.

West Virginia Organizing and Uprisings

David Corbin, Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 1880-1922 (University of Illinois Press, 1981).

The film Matewan by John Sayles neglects to mention that Mother Jones was significantly involved in organizing there. This book fills in that information

Matewan. A film directed by John Sayles. 1987

You might be inclined to think that the film is over the top as far as its portrayal of life in the towns. But read Strikebreaking and Intimidation from this list alongside this movie, and you will see that Sayles underplayed the kind of repression experienced in these mine towns. Unfortunately, Sayles left out Mother Jones from the history, and she was a vital part of organizing West Virginia from the beginning.

Robert Shogun The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising

The real story behind Matewan. Discusses Mother Jones and her controversial decision to help stop the march. Discusses first peacetime use of the air force to put down the uprising.

Books on Mother Jones and related topics for young readers

These books are specifically directed to young readers, but there are books in the other sections of this bibliography that are good for high-school students, in particular her autobiography.

Penny Colman, Mother Jones and the March of the Mill Children (Millbrook Press, 1994).

Ages 9-12 Sets Mother Jones march of 1903 from Pennsylvania to New York in illustrated context

Judith Pinkerton Josephson, Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers' Rights (Lerner Publications, 1996).

Listed as young adult, but probably appropriate for middle school as well.

Donna Rappaport. Trouble at the Mines

Ages 9-12. A fictionalized version of the Arnot, Pennsylvania struggle of 1899, where Mother Jones initiated her famous women's "mop and broom brigade."

Joan C. Hawxhurst, Mother Jones: Labor Crusader (American Troublemakers series) (Steck-Vaughn, 1993).

Young adult

Connie Colwell Miller, Mother Jones: Labor Leader (Capstone Press, 2006).

Listed for ages 9-12

Betsy Harvey Kraft, Mother Jones: One Woman's Fight for Labor (Diane Pub Co, 2006).

Ages 9-12 - an updated version of her biography, with interjections of some primary source material

Rosemary Laughlin, The Ludlow Massacre of 1913-14 (Morgan Reynolds Publishing, 2006).

Grades 7-10

Rachel A. Koestler-Grack, The Story of Mother Jones (Chelsea Clubhouse, 2004).

Ages 9-12

Kathlyn Gay, Mother Jones (Morgan Reynolds Publishing, 2006).

Grade 7+

Atkinson, Linda. Mother Jones, the most dangerous woman in America . New York : Crown Publishers, 1978.

Howard Zinn and Rebecca Steffoff, A Young People's History of the United States : Class Struggle to the War On Terror (Seven Stories Press, 2007)

For ages 7-10. Has a chapter that deals with Ludlow and also mentions Mother Jones, explains socialism in this era in an understandable way

Susan Campbell Bartoletti Growing Up in Coal Country

Ages 9-12, 128 pages. Pennsylvania. Stunning photographs of child miners and life in the mining camps

Russell Freedman Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor

Classic photographic material from the Progressive Era muckraker

Women and Mining

Marat Moore, Women in the Mines: Stories of Life and Work (Twayne Publishers, 1996).

Stories and profiles of women across the decades, mineworkers and mining women

Ron E. Roberts and Carol Cook-Roberts. Mother Jones and Her Sisters: A Century of Women Activists in the American Coal Fields. (Kendall, 1998).

A nice collection of stories that connect workplace and community with narrative stories. Also includes women as miners

Bonnie Stepenoff, Their Fathers' Daughters: Silk Mill Workers in Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1880-1960 , Susquehanna University Press, 1999 and Bonnie Stepenoff, “Keeping it in the family: Mother Jones and the Pennsylvania Silk Strike of 1900-1901,” Labor History , Fall, 1997; "I'm a Johnny Mitchell Man: Gender and Labor Protest in the Pennsylvania Hard Coal Uprising, 1900-1902," in Mining Women: Gender, Labor, Capital, and Community in a Global Perspective , edited by Laurie Mercier and Jaclyn Gier Viskavotoff, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2006, pp. 181-194

Stepanoff offers a highly critical look at Mother Jones' gendered views of protest. Stepanoff argues that Mother Jones reinforced gender roles as much as she challenged them, and reinforced the patriarchy of the male breadwinner. "The solution became, not a better deal for the female workers, but a better deal for the fathers, who, in Jones's view, should support them." Read alongside Wake, Dorothy L. Mother Jones, Revolutionary Leader of Labor & Social (2001) for 2 contrasting perspectives of Mother Jones and feminism.

Camille Guerin-Gonzales, "From Ludlow to Camp Solidarity: Women, Men, and Cultures of Solidarity in U.S. Coal Communities, 1912-1990," in Mining Women: Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1670 to 2005 ed. Gier and Mercier

Deutsch, Sara. No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940 (Oxford, 1987) connects gender and community-based activism in the coal fields and has section on Ludlow as well

Women and the Labor Movement

Dorothy Sue Cobble, The Other Women's Movement Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America

Alice Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America

Women and mining

Marat Moore, Women in the Mines: Stories of Life and Work (Twayne Publishers, 1996).

“Keeping it in the family: Mother Jones and the Pennsylvania Silk Strike of 1900-1901,”

Labor History , Fall, 1997 by Bonnie Stepenoff

Their Fathers' Daughters: Silk Mill Workers in Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1880-1960 , Susquehanna University Press, 1999

The issue for Jones was "not the injustice of paying such low wages to silk workers, but the injustice of employing [wives and mothers] in the mills [at all]. The solution became, not a better deal for the female workers, but a better deal for the fathers, who, in Jones's view, should support them." 5

"I'm a Johnny Mitchell Man: Gender and Labor Protest in the Pennsylvania Hard Coal Uprising, 1900-1902," in Mining Women: Gender, Labor, Capital, and Community in a Global Perspective , edited by Laurie Mercier and Jaclyn Gier Viskavotoff, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2006, pp. 181-194