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

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Discussion Questions

This page is still under construction.

Coming soon I will post a "frequently asked questions" section

and a list of discussion questions that are designed to help facilitate discussion of the documentary

If you have questions that you think need to be addressed here, please send them to me at the contact on the left

Answers to questions asked by a reviewer about the film,

by Rosemary Feurer

1) What prompted you to make the film?

Originally, the material on Mother Jones was intended to be a segment of another documentary we are making, Remember Virden . That film is about the class and race conflict in Virden and other Illinois mining communities in 1898. Mother Jones sought to be buried with the "Virden martyrs" in Mt. Olive , Illinois ' Union Miners' Cemetery, in an effort to remind us of the role of ordinary workers in the struggles for labor justice. For more information on that film, see www.remembervirden.niu.edu We thought this would be a 7 minute segment for that film, but as we shaped that section we thought that she deserved her own piece and it grew from 7, 9, 15, to finally 24 minutes. Especially after we got the live footage of her speaking, we were compelled to produce this separate piece. That also explains why there is only one historian in the film. We did not plan to make this project, this project took on a life of its own.

How long did the project take?

It took about one year, working sporadically however, and changes came after feedback from various audiences. However, the research is part of the Virden project, which we have been working on for 3 years.

Who do you see as the intended audience and how will you distribute the film?

This is intended for several audiences. One obvious audience is that of labor union advocates and organizers, and this group has responded enthusiastically. But we also cast it so that it would be interesting to a broader audience, from middle and high school through general public. We have been gratified that all types of people have found it appealing, and consider it from different angles: the story of a remarkable woman who despite the pain she had experienced recreated herself to help build a movement for justice, the story of the struggle for immigrant rights, the real story of the denial of free speech to labor activists, the story of a shocking darker history of the events of Ludlow that is not well known.

There is a website for the film, www.motherjonesmuseum.org which also has additional materials. There are a number of distribution points as well, including www.laborheritagefoundation.org Already over 1000 copies have been distributed through these outlets. It is getting a positive response from a variety of sources. .

2) Your use of archival material is very impressive. How did you track down the stills, news clippings, footage of Mother Jones?

In addition to a variety of archives, the help of friends of Rosemary's in the labor movement has been essential, as well as people who are eager to get the story known. A lot of free material was made available that way, as well as leads. For instance, the UMWA allowed us to use clips that they had acquired for their film, Out of Darkness, because of the influence of a miner who supported our work. That is where we got the live footage of the troops at Ludlow and a lot of other material from the Ludlow . In addition, research for the story about Virden has been ongoing for a few years, and various archival sources were known from that research. The best find was when a retired miner, whom Rosemary knew through another miner and labor activist, told her that he had the only existing live footage of Mother Jones, and would send it express mail. It mattered to these labor activists that there was no profit incentive in the project, and that was a factor in their willingness to share this material.

How did the Elliot Gorn interview come about?

Gorn was interviewed as part of the Remember Virden project, and has been eager to participate from the beginning of that project. His interview was very compelling, and was a factor in shaping the project, and making it grow from a projected 7 minutes to 24. It is apparent that his feelings for Mother Jones come through in the interview, we think he comes across in the film very well.

3) How did you choose the music? Who are the musicians and what's the story behind the songs? What's the function of the music in your film?

For more information about how you can order the songs from the documentary, or see the lyrics, see links page has the lyrics to the documentary songs

We chose music that would evoke the feelings and cadence of the struggles. The choices were considered with care, and the particular performance of the song was important. They were intended to bridge generations. Rosemary, as a labor scholar and historian activist, has a library of labor music in both original and later adaptations. She and Laura agreed it was not necessary to choose material that was all authentically from Mother Jones' lifetime. Instead we chose music that would evoke her spirit and the struggles she went through in a way that would make modern audiences listen. Here are the specifics:

1) Which Side Are You On? was written by a miner's wife, Florence Reese, in the Harlan County Kentucky struggle in 1931, a year after Mother Jones had died. In Harlan County , after sheriff's raided Mrs. Reese's home (her husband was a union organizer) and ransacked it in the presence of Mrs. Reece and her children, she penned this song. There women were central to the struggle and their efforts were well in line with the example of Mother Jones, so we thought it appropriate. The old lady's voice that starts the voice is the authentic version of Mrs. Reese, but that version of the entire song doesn't resonate with modern audiences. But it was emblematic of the contributions Mother Jones had made, because miners' wives were central to labor struggles. This is a story that is not well known, but one that one can trace to Mother Jones. The various versions of this song in the film are by those by Tom Juravich and Anne Feeney. Both of these musicians updated the older version by Reese into a sound that would resonate with younger audiences.

2) Woody Guthrie penned the Ludlow Massacre from stories he heard about it when he was out west. He recorded it, and in fact the folk song was the main way that the Ludlow Massacre was remembered until Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States made it better known. Still, most people have never heard of these events. We used Tom Juravich's version, recorded for the album Out of Darkness . Guthrie's version is not nearly as compelling musically as is Juravich's.

3) The Death of Mother Jones was written by an anonymous miner, but was recorded after Mother Jones' death by the young Gene Autry. Bucky Halker, who is a musician and encouraged the production of Remember Virden , allowed us to use his version, which has an updated feel to it.

4) Ballad of Spring Hill is the one that was actually written about a Canadian mine accident in 1953. However, the haunting version as recorded by Tom Juravich made it a compelling choice for emphasizing the double threats that miners encountered. They faced death down below on a daily basis: ““Listen for the shouts of the bare faced miners, listen through the rubble for the rescue team. Six hundred feet of coal and slate. Open prison in a three foot seam, open prison in a three foot seam.” Unfortunately, it was a condition that Mother Jones' activism did not remedy.

“Bone and Blood is the Price of Coal” is the refrain of the song. Perhaps the audience will also think about the way that miners bodies were threatened when they sought free speech and association to organize to prevent these kinds of conditions. In fact, industrial capitalism, Mother Jones argued, was built over their dead bodies.