At year’s end, we pause to reflect on those we have lost and commemorate their lives. John Keiser John Keiser, a native of Mt. Olive who did so much to keep the spirit-thread of history of the area alive, passed away suddenly in January of this year. The board of the museum mourned Prof. Keiser’s loss and celebrated his contribution at our May Day event. John’s decision to become a labor historian was a product of the Mt. Olive union culture. Long before there was such a field as “labor history” in the historical profession, John decided to become one, according to his widow, Nancy Keiser. “First, he had two grandfathers, John Keiser and John Fenwick, who both worked in the mines,” she remarked. The loss of Fenwick in a mine accident was a core memory. But the culture of Mt. Olive, where labor history was taught in the schools, and children received their report cards at the Monument every year, was a key factor as well. Keiser readily recognized that miners, their families, and their communities had shaped history even if the dominant culture did not. John never forgot his roots. John Keiser, native of Mt. Olive, a “pioneer of labor history.” Photo credit: Nancy Keiser It was a shock to attend college and find nothing in the curriculum about labor history, according to Nancy. So when John was accepted to Northwestern, he told his mentor, Robert Wiebe, that he was determined to research and write about labor’s history. His widow Nancy, who typed all his papers and books, remembered his deep commitment to his hometown and to excavating some of this hidden history, calling him a “pioneer of labor history.”  His dissertation, completed in 1965, was on John Fitzpatrick, the Chicago Irish labor leader who was a key associate of Mother Jones. Keiser eventually wrote about the role of Mt. Olive and the radical milieu of miners’ culture that created the Mother Jones monument. Nancy Keiser noted he was tremendously excited about the Mother Jones Museum and the revitalization of the Cemetery and Monument. John had helped Joe Ozanic and Progressive Miners Union accomplish the designation of the Union Miners Cemetery’s National Historic Place in 1972. He also wrote an important article that articulated the racial contours of the history, showing a willingness to critically examine racism’s role in the labor movement. John transitioned to university administration, becoming President at Boise State University in Idaho Southwest Missouri State University. Nelson Grman, President of the Museum board, who was two years behind John in school in Mt. Olive, noted that Keiser’s passing “saddens me, but I am so glad that he knew that one of his dreams, our museum, had finally come true.” James Green Above: James Green, author of the Devil is Here in These Hills and Chuck Keeney, grandson of Chuck Keeney at the march on Blair Mountain, 2011. This 2011 march, which commemorated the largest worker uprising in US history, was the great catalyst for the final effort to save the site from being destroyed by mining and for the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. James Green’s loss came as a deep blow earlier this year as well. Green had turned his attention to miners and their history, winning the highest recognition of his work when the show American Experience authorized the Mine Wars, a two-hour documentary based on his 2015 The Devil is Here in these Hills. He was tremendously enthusiastic about being on our Project’s scholar’s board, but also was committing to directly helping with work at the museum. The beautiful account by Jim O’Brien gives a full narrative of Green’s contributions and motivations, a guide to seeing how much he considered his life’s work part of a tradition both inside and outside the academy. O’Brien profiles not only Green’s published works, which included Death in the Haymarket, but also shows that public history was a driving force in Green’s life. Jim’s commitment to public history was abiding. I learned much about his character when I asked him whether he would be willing to speak at the Cork Mother Jones Festival even if they couldn’t guarantee him funding for travel or speaking. He didn’t hesitate before agreeing to it. His presentation there in 2014 will be long remembered. Afterwards he remarked that this festival was the most extraordinary experience, a masterful achievement in public history about which more people in the U.S. should be aware. He recalled that he got his start in public history through the experience of London’s History Workshop, where academics stretched the boundaries of accepted practice to connect past to present. Cork, he insisted, was in that tradition, but what they had achieved surpassed anything he had experienced in London. Jim’s battle with cancer prevented him from speaking at the Mother Jones Foundation dinner in 2015 as he had hoped. He called me in late 2015 to ask me to tell folks that he was determined to speak at the dinner this year. I had just talked to Terry Reed of the Foundation the night before his passing (on June 3) about the plans for this year’s dinner and Terry expressed excitement about this year’s event because Green was to be the featured speaker.  Green was planning to help with a fundraising letter and drive for our museum in the months before he passed. It was part of his abiding commitment. Jim was a model public scholar who will be deeply missed Dave Hopper The global labor movement lost a major activist in the tradition of Mother Jones this year, and someone who was a friend of our Project. Dave Hopper was one-of-a-kind,  fourth generation miner who became General Secretary of the Durham Miners’ Association during the heart of the miners battles with Margaret Thatcher, who determined to wipe the socialist influence by destroying the miners union in Great Britain. Dave Hopper, left under the commemorative Mother Jones plaque in Cork, Ireland, 2014  Photo credit: Spirit of Mother Jones Festival Despite pit closures and repression,Hopper fought with dogged determination for justice and compensation for miners. He revived the Durham Miners Gala, to ensure that the history of marching and celebration of working class unity might not fade. He kept alive the demands for worker power in the Labor Party that came to light this year with Jeremy Corbyn’s election to the head of the party. He kept alive the bitter truth that  Maggie Thatcher had conspired to destroy the miners union and had conspired with police power to repress the miners at the Battle of Orgreave in 1984. As we learned, the true story had never been fully told. The Cork Mother Jones Festival had recruited Dave Hopper to their events. I was glad to be at the 2014 Festival that Dave attended. I will never forget his reaction after he viewed “Mother Jones, America’s Most Dangerous Woman.” He was deeply moved and declared that Mother Jones “belonged to all of us” and that he would personally do what he could to bring awareness of working class people to her life and its meaning in current struggles. He immediately ordered some of the DVDs and committed to sharing them and showing them. Speaking about the Miners Union battles, he declared  that every worker must learn this history. He wanted to spread the word of the legacy of Mother Jones, he said. We also discussed building awareness of these global connections here in Illinois. Some of the founders of the Illinois miners unions were from the Durham area, and were part of the Chartist movement that promoted collective action like street protest and memorials to demand more from their government. The miners in Illinois pushed the first successful drive to get workers elected to political office from this base. They initiated the American Miners Union, ,the first national miners union, whose anthem was “Step by Step, the Longest March, Can be Won.” That was part of the Chartist and labor tradition from Durham as well. It was made into a hybrid movement that we inherit. We had hoped to build more connections between Mt. Olive and the Durham area through Dave, so it is with deep sadness that we mourn his loss this year. Gene Vanderport Gene Vanderport was a friend of this Project who did much to carry on the tradition of Mother Jones. When I first embarked on the Mother Jones project as an idea only, he gave me so much needed encouragement. His loss this autumn was a terrible blow to all who knew him. For him, like for Hopper, this was a history that coursed through his veins, a global history in which he felt a responsibility to traditions of struggle. Gene felt a direct connection to miners and this history. He was the product of Belgian miners in  the Danville, Illinois area, motivated as a college student to honor his radical lineage as he became committed to “participatory democracy.”  His dad was a UMWA member; he often repeated to me that he learned to combat racism first and foremost from his dad, who remarked, “we are all black” down in the mines. Mother Jones Chapter, Central Illinois #JobsWithJustice members protest Gov. Rauner proposals to bring union-busting laws to Illinois, 2-6-15; 2nd from left, Germaine Light, Alida Graham, Gene Vanderport. Photo credit: Mark Michaels His uncle had met Eugene Debs, and was part of the radical union, the International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers, a descendant of the Western Federation of Miners that Mother Jones was so well associated with (she had actually kept financially afloat at a critical moment) as well. So he felt a responsibility to carrying on these traditions. He could have risen to top union leadership ranks if he had chosen to do so; instead, in the tradition of Mother Jones, he chose to stay close to the union members he represented and to the community of his youth. With Gene’s encouragement, his wife Germaine Light played the part of Mother Jones in Champaign, Illinois area labor marches. They helped to designate their Jobs with Justice chapter after Mother Jones. We were honored that Germaine felt moved to be part of the October events at the cemetery this year. Gene, who was not religious, would nonetheless have been the first to admonish us all to remember Mother Jones’ word to honor him and all of those profiled here, “Pray for the Dead and Fight Like Hell for the Living.”

I’ve been thinking about Santa Claus and the lump of coal threat from folklore. Thinking about it in relationship to this month, which is the anniversary of one of the highest miner death tolls in a single month  in US history, December 1907. Two of those December 1907 disasters were forever associated with Santa Claus, or at least St. Nicholas when immigrant lives were saved by their refusal to give up their holiday to their corporate masters.  In Monongah, West Virginia, and Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania, it seemed to some that St. Nicholas had intervened on some workers’ behalf, sparing them.  Catholic immigrants were still celebrating St Nicholas in the western tradition on December 6 when the Monongah disaster struck. In the eastern tradition, the feast day was on December 19, saving Slavic immigrants celebrating near the Darr mine at Jacobs Creek. It became known as the great intercession, a tale handed down through the years and in the icons of the Church. Above: At the Darr Mine, in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania, women and children waited for news in December 1907, held back not only by a rope line that prevented them from overseeing the rescue, but by armed state constabulary (police), there just in case they turned their grief into rage toward the owners. Some miners were spared by St. Nicholas Day celebration. Pittsburgh Press, December 21, 1907 Mother Jones, who organized in both places, thought workers should skip the pleas for magical or divine intervention. Why do you accept the lump of coal from the bosses? Jesus would want you to rise up, not depend on him or blessings, she argued. You need to take the coal, and  create a new world from the one the heartless and soulless capitalist bosses had created. She and other radicals in the coal fields rejected the idea that miners willingly sacrificed their life for their jobs, and cultivated a movement that refused to beg for more than the St. Nicholas holiday. They gave the collective “NO!” to the mandate that workers were willingly accepting the risk.  Human sacrifice, she said, was created by class conditions that forced those with only their labor power to sell, to sell it cheap and not hold it dear. Mine owners cared more for their mules, which they had to pay to replace, than for the miners. Death was always the source of coal’s profitability throughout its history.  There was a reason company lawyers and their political minions argued that the only right workers had was the right-to-quit, and that when they took a job they contracted knowingly for the risk. When companies didn’t owe anything for loss of life (much less the destruction of communities and the environment), profit could be extracted. Without that equation, profit was marginal. Well over 150,000 miners lost their lives in the late 19th and early 20th century, more than in most wars in US history. From Jones’ autobiography: The story of coal is always the same. It is a dark story. For a second’s more sunlight, men must fight like tigers. For the privilege of seeing the color of their children’s eyes by the light of the sun, fathers must fight as beasts in the jungle. That life may have something of decency, something of beauty-a picture, a new dress, a bit of cheap lace fluttering in the window-for this, men who work down in the mines must struggle and lose, struggle and win. It was only with the Cherry, Illinois mine disaster of 1910 that compensation for death was first applied, but that was the beginning of great compromises and mixed successes. Years of struggle continued, but the bitter truth is that only strong unions and government oversight could  lessen the toll of death from coal. This kind of compensation was not satisfying to Mother Jones, and she and others argued a radical position– that the kinds of cold calculations would not end without public ownership. Mechanization and surface mining decreased the number of underground disasters that led to cruel months such as December 1907, but the lump of coal thinking continued. Mechanization, though,  increased the amount of dust and led to increasing incidence of black lung. It, like mountaintop removal, asked workers and communities to bear the cost of profitability. Compensation for any of the destruction of life would mean no profits. Worker death for coal trade-offs is not a story of the past. We should also recognize that worker deaths and environmental destruction are  two sides of the same coin, even though the zero-sum games of corporate greed have caused us to think of them as separate. This is clear given the recent stories of the resurgence in black lung in Appalachia. Since 1968, when the numbers were first generated, 78,000 miners have died from black lung. Miners, according to the reports, avoid testing for the disease until they are out of work. They trade their lives for their jobs. “If you’re working and you go and have that stuff done and the company finds out about it, they’ll find a way to get rid of you,” [Charles Wayne] Stanley, [a Kentucky miner recently diagnosed with black lung and silicosis] says. “As long as you’re working and producing you’re an asset. But now when you get something wrong with you, you become a liability. And they’ll find a way to get rid of you.” Another 39-year old miner from Elkhorn Creek, Kentucky, was waiting on his first black lung compensation check so he could buy his kids some Christmas gifts. He claimed he had no regrets for sacrificing his life, and put it this way, “The mining game is a numbers game,” Mackie  Branham says. “If you don’t produce coal, they’ll put somebody else in your spot that can. If I’ve got another man on the other side of the mines, he’s cutting more coal than me, it’s not going to look good on me. I just thought about my family to be honest with you.” Placing this in historical context is important. Rank and file miners and their communities waged a massive militant campaign that led to the 1969 Coal Mine Health and Safety Act and recognition of black lung as a claim.This was the same insurgency that revived Mother Jones’ memory. But the mindset that miners accept the risk continued to influence policymakers. Even vaunted human-rights champion Jimmy Carter in the 1970s had not rejected the social-Darwinist principles that were handed down from the 19th century. He opposed high compensation for black lung, a hint at the neoliberalism to come. Didn’t miners accept the dangers of the job, he casually commented, weren’t they aware that they might contract the deadly disease? Facing the first oil crisis and an injunction to make coal profitable, he sided with the industry against the insurgent miners’ movement. Rank and file miners responded to his alliance with the industry by launching a 111 day strike of 1977-1978, the kind we haven’t seen since.  That’s the other “sixties” movement people have forgotten, the last working class rebellion through the unions, in opposition to top leadership. Carter tried to force them back to work by invoking Taft-Hartley, but he couldn’t do it. It was a great victory that produced the hope of insurgency on the scale not seen since Mother Jones’ era. But Carter’s perspective prevails today:  miners with black lung, from which they will suffer immensely and die, receive $644 for themselves, up to a maximum of $1285 month if they have 3 or more dependents. Pres. Obama probably wouldn’t be so crass as to openly make a similar statement to Carter’s today, but these death-for-coal kinds of calculations were at work in his administration’s agreement to allow looser dust standards than recommended by NIOSH scientists who have been warning since the 1990s of black lung increases. The high standards would have put the US coal industry on par with Australia, where few miners die from black lung. Black lung’s effects Meanwhile, coal continues to get massive amounts of state and federal subsidies. Collectivism works for the coal industry, but collective action is met by brutal force when workers attempt it. The Black Lung Disability Trust fund is massively underfunded but golden parachutes and bankruptcies that mask the death calculations with their dummy companies set up to avoid compensation to miners. Of course, we know that Mother Jones would have argued that the problem was that the needs of the industry are prevailing above the needs of the earth and its people. For her and radicals of her generation, thinking of natural resources as belonging to the public was the great collective objection to the plunder for private gain. From this radical core, brilliant ideas of worker cooperatives, shorter hours, people above profits, turning prisons into sanctuaries all flowed naturally. “They call us dreamers, and dreamers we are,” she said. “But our dreams are to be the salvation of your children and the preservation of liberty in the days that are to come.” The loss of that radical core has brought us to accepting a lump of coal as the best we can do. The loss of the radical part of the labor movement has allowed the exchange of lives for profit to continue.

Early this year, Marc Albrecht, an old friend from St. Louis and an Illinois Education Association representative for Mt. Olive, contacted me to suggest I contact Kate Klimut and Jim Schoppman, who I knew mainly though Marc when we all lived in St. Louis. Little could I have imagined what has resulted from renewing an acquaintance with these two. The museum board is now proud to announce that Kate and Jim have joined our creative team and that Kate has joined our board. They both bring a passion for this history, direct family connections to the story, and multiple talents. Both of their family’s histories are connected to Mother Jones and mining in Southern Illinois. They grew up hearing about Mother Jones and knowing that miners had played an important role in organizing the union movement in the United States. Kate remembers being taught about Mother Jones, the work of women in coal mining conflicts, and the Battle of Virden in Carlinville schools, where teachers instilled a sense that miners and their families, including the women and children, had been a force in history. She also learned to think of the home in Carlinville that was an important part of the Underground Railroad, and for her, this communicated a sense that ordinary people could be a force in history.  Keep in mind, she says, little labor history was then—or now—usually taught in the schools. Not so in this area of the country, where the miners culture built the first teachers unions as well. Left: Kate Klimut, 2015 Kate’s family were Ukrainian and Hungarian immigrants who came to the US in the early part of the twentieth century. “My maternal grandfather, John Hurzon, first came to Pennsylvania but migrated to the West Frankfort area of Illinois,” where immigrant militancy was part of daily life. Her grandfather, she says with a chuckle, “was a Commie” in Benld, where various strains of radicalism coexisted with devotion to church and ethnic organizations.  “My daddy, a union airline pilot, taught me never to cross a picket line,” a direct result from his miners’ heritage and his own experience. She treasures other values she learned from her family. Kate remembers as a young girl driving to Missouri with her maternal grandmother Helen Klimut, who lived in a small village of Hettick Illinois in Macoupin County. Helen made it a point to show Kate a segregated drinking fountain, pointed to it, and told her “that is so wrong!” When Kate met Jim at her workplace years ago, and she learned he was connected to a mining family in the Mt. Olive area, she knew he was a “good guy” with working class roots. Both of them still think of themselves as “an extended part of the Mount Olive community and want to give back by honoring the global message of Mother Jones acting as a fighter who loved humanity. We believe in being open in our assistance with this project.” Jim grew up in Florissant, Missouri, but visited his maternal grandparents Clarence and Edith Engelman in Mt. Olive. He heard stories about Mother Jones while traversing the cemeteries to learn directly the stories of his ancestors. Clarence was a standard bearer at Mother Jones funeral, an honor given to families directly connected to the origins of Union Miners cemetery and the battle at Virden. His great grandfather, Mike Engelman, was a survivor of the Virden conflict in 1898, going to the scene to confront the Thiel detective agents and Chicago policemen who armed themselves and built stockades to defeat the new union in 1898. He later became a teamster. Another of Jim’s  relatives include Edward Fletcher, an English miner by the age of 11, whose death testifies to the casual way that tragedy was an everyday part of the miners’ life. Edward, his great great maternal grandfather, died when he was grinding an ax in a mine in Collinsville, Illinois; the spinning emery wheel broke and according to a newspaper story in Jim’s possession, resulted in “knocking his brains out and killing him almost instantly.” The family then depended on the male children to go down in the pits for survival. Above: Mike Engelman, Jim’s maternal grandfather, was one of the survivors of the 1898 Virden conflict. These brutal stories, and the militant determination of the miners to secure their rights, were all part of a thread that was communicated in personal stories. Kate did the graphic art work for this museum windows display. The banner is a newly discovered quotation through Rosemary Feurer's research, and the photo and other research for the display is also by Rosemary. Kate believes that the “story of Mother Jones is a wonderful piece of history, and now, more than ever, it needs to be told.” As she works in St. Louis with immigrant refugees, she tells them that one hundred years ago, her family faced some of the same prejudices and yet shaped the history of the United States. They, like her ancestors, are worried today, “but eager for democracy.”  Jim can’t think of a better contribution to make to ensuring that the history is remembered and demonstrated in the museum and beyond. Above: Jim designed the easel for the museum displays. Over the past year, they have both been drawn to the project, first helping us with the May Day event, then finally committing to more extensive planning, graphic design, and event planning. They bring decades of work as graphic artists. Jim is planning to help us with museum display cases. He learned the craft of woodworking and has produced extraordinary pieces that are shown in the gallery of photos here. Already they have created some of the work and planning new materials that will multiply the value of your donations far beyond what would have been otherwise feasible. See the gallery of photos to see what talents they bring to this project. Above: Kate Klimut designed this display along with Rosemary Feurer's caption card on the right. The Museum board members are grateful for Kate and Jim’s volunteer labor of love. They join other board members who are multiplying your contributions. All of the board members have stories to tell about their motivation and perspective, and we hope to bring more of those in future posts. If you are interested in volunteering from near or far, or have a story to tell, we’d love to hear from you. Maybe you have a family story that you could tell? Maybe you will donate to our museum history makers wall to reinforce the volunteer contributions? Kate with the mug and poster she designed.

A small gathering at the Mt. Olive Union An old friend of mine, Germaine Light, has performed Mother Jones over the years in central Illinois. Germaine is a retired teacher and activist in the Illinois Education Association and peace and justice causes. Next to her is Jim Alderson of Gillespie, Illinois performing as General Bradley, who at age 30 led the miners on the 1897 general strike in this area. The speech that Germaine is performing was constructed from the actual words of Mother Jones, attacking the governors who did the work of the coal operators. "Governor, you don't own the state!" she proclaimed. Above: the new window design for the Mt. Olive City Hall museum room. Research and photo research and design elements by Rosemary Feurer, including quote, which she discovered from a new source in 2014. The lovely red banner and the work on design was completed by Kate Klimut, gratis. This is how the donations you give go so far. We were able to do this at a fraction of the cost it would normally take for such work. This also provides a light shield to any potential artifacts placed in the museum. A new exhibit comes to life! Kate Klimut did the graphic work for this, with Rosemary Feurer finding the image. We wanted something that depicted the fact that Mother Jones found these boys just the sort of future organizers that made her renowned. We designed an exhibit that allows visitors to understand the rough life and spirit of these coal mining boys. The card that is clipped on has a quotation from Mother Jones.

The Mother Jones Heritage Project has been developing ties with the Eugene V. Debs Foundation, just as Mother Jones and Debs did in the past. The Midwest orbit from Terre Haute to Chicago and Mount Olive, Illinois and other mining towns shaped the nation's labor and socialist movement in ways that are not well known today, but which made sense to people in the Gilded Age. The Debs Foundation is responsible for care of Debs' home, which is a national historic landmark. They hosted their annual fundraising dinner on September 24.  Mother Jones Heritage Project board member Dave Rathke attended the dinner and is also a board member for the Foundation. He brought Mother to the dinner & also to the Debs Museum; here are a sampling of photos. At the Debs Dinner: Shaquona Elllis, Student from Marian University Indianapolis at the Debs dinner Sara Cole and Cale Erwin of Terre Haute attended the Debs dinner Ralph Leck of UNITEHERE Local 23, Terre Haute Cindy Sheehan, anti-war activist, received the Debs Foundation award at their annual dinner Courtney Harris, Indiana State University Student Senator at the Debs dinner.

On Labor Day, core organizers of the new faculty union at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville came to the Mother Jones monument in Mt. Olive to commemorate and celebrate (yes, with the traditional Irish whiskey) their achievement: they filed with the Labor Board this week for their new union. (Edwardsville is around 20 miles from Mt. Olive.) Kim Archer, a music professor and key organizer of the union effort, took inspiration from these past struggles as she and other professors have experienced anti-union attacks in recent days. We are inspired that these “United Mind Workers” sought out this monument to honor the past as they seek to change the possibilities for their future, and the future of their students. SIUE core organizers of the new faculty union. Kim Archer, music professor at SIUE faculty union president and Interim President with Dave Vitoff, Illinois Education Association staff member and organizer. Solidarity Forever! To learn more about the issues of the SIUE faculty organizing, see these articles: SIUE tenure-track faculty files paperwork to unionize Sept 6 SIUE faculty files with state for union recognition – St. Louis Business Journal Sept 6

#laborpaste Pullman neighborhood in Chicago is seeing Mother Jones and others labor activists from the past. “For me it’s the gilded age in Pullman,” says artist JB Daniel who placed Mother Jones as a ghostly reminder of the connections between past and present. The owner of he house who has this honor learned about Mother Jones from Jackie Kirley of Working Women's History Project and was thrilled to have Mother Jones painted there. See more at Pullman Arts and Here is the artist's page on the project: http://www.jbdaniel.com/citizen10.html We would love to do this on our trail. For mining towns the gilded age has never really left. Always extracting, never replacing, neither resources or wealth. Mother Jones was known as the "Mother of the American Railway Union." where Pullman workers went on strike in 1894 in the famous showdown. So it's really appropriate she stands in testament there now.

Mary Delach Leonard's nice story about the new Mt. Olive museum is here. Give it a listen! Also, you can scroll down for some great photos. Here is the written story from the website: Jim Alderson and Nelson Grman spend hours at Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Ill., about 50 miles northeast of St. Louis, looking after the monument to Mother Jones, the fearless union organizer who crusaded for workers’ rights a century ago. They hope that a new museum being developed in town will ensure that younger generations will know the story of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, who was buried here in 1930 -- at her request -- next to three coal miners who died in a labor riot in 1898. Museum organizers are holding a May Day celebration on Saturday to honor her legacy. The granite monument was erected in 1936, paid for by coal miners from across the country who chipped in to honor the woman who had marched with them to demand better wages and an eight-hour workday. It’s a National Historic Site, and there are highway markers on nearby Interstate 55 and also on a well-traveled stretch of old Route 66 that passes through town. Grman, 77, says he’s met people from around the world while puttering at the cemetery. Some are members of labor unions traveling through the area. But many of the visitors have no idea who Mother Jones was. “It’s a pleasure to talk to these people and tell them what the true story is. It’s hard to get anything done because about the time one group leaves another shows up. And I like to talk a little bit, too,’’ he says, as Alderson nods his head and laughs in agreement. Grman also tells visitors how vehemently Mother Jones -- the “grandmother of all agitators” -- fought to end child labor. “And if you look at any of the history books that tell the true story you’ll see where they had children 5 and 6 years old working in the textile mills; 10- and 11-year-olds working in the coal mines. It was a brutal part of our history that we cannot let be forgotten,’’ Grman says. Sometimes, the men sit on the base of the 22-foot obelisk and ponder the history that surrounds them in this quiet little cemetery that was born of turbulent times. Local members of the United Mine Workers established the cemetery in 1899 as the final resting place for three coal miners from Mount Olive who were among the victims of the violence at a coal mine in Virden, Ill., in October 1898. Other union organizers are buried at the site, including Alexander Bradley, who was known as the “general.” The 80-year-old monument was rededicated in June 2015 after an extensive renovation paid for by private donations, many of them from labor unions, and a tourism grant from the state of Illinois. Alderson, 79, a retired Teamster, says he learned about Mother Jones from his father and grandfather, who were coal miners. “I generally come out here and spray for weeds and one thing or another -- there’s always something to do out here,’’ he says. “It’s hard to explain why we’re so committed. A lot of us feel like this is sacred ground here around this monument. I intend to be buried over here on the north side of the monument -- and be Nelson’s neighbor for eternity.” Celebrating a forgotten legacy The new museum has a location -- a room in the new City Hall on Main Street that was built after a tornado destroyed the old building in 2013. Museum organizers are still raising funds for exhibits, though. At this point, the room is basically empty, except for photographs and several poster boards. There’s also a nearly life-size cutout photograph of Mother Jones, a diminutive figure who wore large hats when she took to the streets in protest. Grman grew up in Mount Olive, which has a population of about 2,000. He says that some residents know little about the self-proclaimed hell-raiser who’s buried in the cemetery at the edge of town. He’s president of the museum board. “It troubles me,’’ Grman says. “I grew up when members of the coal mine industry were still alive who worked in the mines in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I learned from them firsthand about the struggles and dangerous work. We need to remember. We need to let people know who their grandfathers were -- the courageous people who worked in the mines and factories.’’ Rosemary Feurer, a history professor from Northern Illinois University, is on the museum board. She says that Mother Jones spent a lot of time in St. Louis, and was familiar with Mount Olive because the coal mines that dotted the countryside were a hotbed for labor activism. In 1897, coal miners from Mount Olive launched a "marching strike" for a living wage that had national impact. “We really have to think of miners in this small town taking history into their own hands,'' Feurer says. "Marching from Mount Olive to Belleville, Illinois -- 50 miles -- and saying to their fellow miners, ‘Come out with us. We’re fighting for an eight-hour day. We’re fighting for a living wage. And we have to be in this together.’ ” Feurer says it was that show of solidarity that convinced Mother Jones to choose Mount Olive as her final resting place. In the early years of the 20th century, Mother Jones was a "rock star" union organizer who made headlines protesting for labor reform across the United States. But she’s been largely forgotten, Feurer says, because she clashed with John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers. Her activism was born of personal tragedy: Mother Jones claimed to be born in 1830, though historians believe she was actually born in 1837 in Cork, Ireland, where they hold an annual festival in her name. Her family emigrated to Canada after the Great Famine. She later lived in Memphis, Tenn., where she was a teacher. After her husband and four children died during a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, she moved to Chicago. There, she opened a dress shop that was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871. She ended up homeless, living in a church. Jones turned to socialism and the labor movement to fight class injustice, Feurer says. “What she remembered most was that the rich and well-to-do left Memphis. They left the disease with the poor,’’ she says. “Then, in 1871 she lost her dress shop in the Great Fire. We remember that as a terrible tragedy, a natural disaster. But for her, it was also class injustice because, in the aftermath, they tried to rebuild in a way that got rid of the Irish and other immigrants.’’ “There is no angel on earth.” Feurer is hoping that people from across the region will come to the event on Saturday to share stories of Mother Jones that have been passed down in their families. The museum is working with a filmmaker to record memories and perspectives. The goal is to connect memory and tourism with real meaning, says Feurer, who has dubbed Route 66 the “Mother Jones Road” in Mount Olive. “Not only are we telling story of the region, but there is a big national story that can be told from this place, ‘’ she says. “It is a complex story. It isn’t always a pretty story. There are heroes and villains and people who have mixed records. Mother Jones wasn’t perfect, and she would never have claimed to be. She said, ‘People call me the miner’s angel, but I reject that term. There is no angel on earth.’ '' DRAFTJS_BLOCK_KEY:6tdihFeurer is hoping that people from across the region will come

Don't miss "The Mine Wars" on American Experience January 26 9pm EST (but check local listings). The 2 hour broadcast features #MotherJones and other amazing historical figures who fought for justice in the coalfields of West Virginia. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/theminewars/?fbclid=IwAR1WVtpySK4cxI4B-hb17N1kPNmjKy2SYSqnHek3cCJB36kyx7VshYTIrNE The Mine Wars is a two hour documentary premiers nationally on the acclaimed history series, American Experience, on January 26. It tells the story of the bloody and contentious struggles of miners to organize unions. Beginning in 1900, Mother Jones helped to spark a rebellion in West Virginia. This documentary shows how ordinary miners, their wives and families led a battle for justice in the workplace and for the right to shape their own communities. These miners fought vigorously to connect labor rights and civil rights, It's a story of  working class rebellion that shaped the entire nation and connects to a global struggle for justice.

An enthusiastic group of visitors came to the open house event for the new museum. At least 165 streamed through following the re-dedication of the Mother Jones Monument on June 20  and during the 2 hours it was opened on June 21. There were people from as far away as Seattle, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana. People come with treasures, such as the diary of a local coal miner who noted the preparations and attendance at Mother Jones’ funeral. Our “Stand With Mother Jones” booth was a hit! See the slideshow gallery below of the  fabulous photos and comments. If yours isn’t there, we will continue to add as we get more, so check back. If you have one please send it to motherjones1930@hotmail.com and we’ll post it here! And if there is an error here, please let us know. Pat, Nathan and Mike Prehoda, Springfield, IL: Mike: “Great event! Thanks! Inspiring!” Sabrina Trupia and Edward Navarre. Sabrina: “I believe her words are as true today as they were back then.” Susan Niederberger, Bev Lofton and Shelly Hoffman from Missouri NEA near St. Charles, Missouri Hoffman: “Fabulous museum!” Susan: I’m so glad to have come here! I can’t wait to come back with friends!” Mark and Cindy Waldemer, St. Louis area: “Mother Jones spoke the truth, and truth never ages. This quote from her is as relevant today as then.” Sean Fulkerson, Chicago, IL and Margaret Fulkerson, Oak Park,IL. James Finnegan, Mt. Olive, IL: James brought a diary from his grandfather, a treasure for us. “My Grandfather attended the funeral of Mother Jones.” Ohren Simburger, Mt. Olive, IL, whose grandfather was one of the survivors of the Virden riot, shot in the leg by Thiel gun thugs. His grandfather was a Pallbearer for Mother Jones Funeral. Judy Griffin (former New Athens,IL teacher leader) & Tammy Houghland, (Belleville,IL IEA) stand with Mother Jones. Judy: “Mt. Olive Teachers invoked her creed.” Tammy wrote: “Mother Jones was right. You ain’t got a damn thing if you ain’t got a union!” Dennis Surgalski, Detroit, Michigan: “My father met Mother Jones as a breaker boy in the coal fields.” –from Detroit, Michigan Steve Bottoms from Indiana: “Glad to be here with Mother. Forty Year UMWA member from Indiana.” Steve worked with Rosemary Feurer to complete the Mother Jones film. Barbara and Olin Chambers, Steelworkers from Des Moines Iowa: “Solidarity Works!” And here are a few scenes of the event. The large panels are from the Cork Mother Jones Festival which generously allowed us to use their panels which were constructed by volunteer Jim Fitzpatrick. We displayed these until we can get the funding to produce our own museum displays. We also acknowledge  Freeport Art Museum, which allowed us to use their “Masters of the Muck” exhibit, which included elements from Princeton library’s collection, as well as the collection of Dave Johnson of Merrill, Wisconsin. Above: Rosemary Feurer brought these large displays from Freeport Illinois, a special collaboration with the Mother Jones Heritage Project and the Museum. Many of the items inside the museum were also loaned from a Freeport Museum display. The solidarity of our group of volunteers would have made Mother Jones proud. We could not have done this open house without the help of the following people: Nelson Grman, (Staunton, IL –Pres of Museum Board), Joanne Condellone (Edwardsville, IL) Margaret Fulkerson (Oak Park, IL),  Frank Prochaska (Springfield, IL),  Dennis Surgalski (Detroit, Michigan), Juliann Caveny (Benld, IL), Eric Hostettler (Springfield, IL),  Dave Ambrose (Gillespie, IL),   Lia Baratti (Collinsville, IL), Andy Lucker (Alton, IL) , Greg Boozell (Champaign, IL) Gary Fritz (Macomb, IL), Dave Rathke (DeKalb, IL). We thank the Mother Jones Foundation of Springfield, IL and Dorothy Wake for donating books to sell for the event. We’d also like to thank Aimee Scheller, Jim Bone and Melinda Zippay of Mt. Olive city administration for their assistance in setting up on June 19.

On May 1, 2015, a wreath laying ceremony will take place at the Mother Jones Historic Marker in Adelphi Maryland, near Washington, D.C., near the place where Mother Jones died. This ceremony is hosted near the historic marker to Mother Jones by a group of trade unionists as part of the D.C. Labor Fest. If you are in the area, we hope you will join. We know that the people who honor labor’s heritage have a deep spirit of struggle. The marker was the result of efforts initiated by  of Saul Schniderman, President of the Library of Congress Professional Guild, AFSCME Local 2910 (Council 26), who is on the board of the Mother Jones Heritage Project and lives in the D.C. area. He’s also on the board of the Labor Heritage Foundation. Saul made it his personal quest to find the location of the home where Jones was cared for at the end of her life, and in doing so discovered a story of the devotion of a farm woman to the “grand old champion of labor” that was also worth preserving. Mother Jones said that her home was “wherever there was a fight for justice.” But she had friends from struggles across the country, homes where she was welcome at any time. As she grew older, and suffered severe rheumatism, she had to give up participating in crusades for labor rights. She settled in at the home of Terrence and Emma Powderly in D.C. for a while. Through them, Jones met Lillie May and Walter Burgess, who owned a truck farm in a fairly isolated area of Maryland. As Jones declined further, Lillie May lovingly took care of her full time, at great cost to her own health. An amazing list of people came to visit the farm, from labor leaders to newspaper reporters. On May 1, 1930, Burgess hosted Jones birthday party, with 1000 people attending. It was front page news in papers across the country. On November 1, 1930, Jones died at the farm house. Six years later, 50,000 coal miners and others gathered to dedicate the Mother Jones monument in Mt. Olive, in memory of Mother Jones who was buried here in December 1930. Among the speakers at that event was Lillie May Burgess, who had never traveled far from her home before. Burgess spoke of how she had grown to care deeply for the fine woman who had “faced machine guns” in the cause of labor rights. This week people will come together to remember Jones at the marker near the Burgess farmhouse. The story of how Saul found the Burgess farm and more about the last days of Mother Jones life is in the bibliography section. We also now have a Maryland & D.C. section of our sites and stories. Do you have something to share? Join us in telling these stories. Saul likes to remind us of the adage from folklore, “dig where you stand.” Not only did he excavate this story, but he has continued to inspire others to keep digging. He publishes a weekly e-mail newsletter, Friday’s Folklore. You can subscribe by sending an e-mail to fridaysfolklore@gmail.com |   with the word subscribe in the subject line. One of the things our museum and heritage project will accomplish is to connect people across the globe in uncovering more of these stories and reminding us of the heritage of the working class and our connections across time and place. Saul’s way of digging is an inspiration to us all. Lillie May Burgess, who cared for Mother Jones as she lay dying, speaks at the Mt. Olive Mother Jones Monument, 1936. Ozanic photo. Update: you can see more about Saul's story of finding the resting place on our Stories Page of this website, including the full page article about Saul's digging.

Today is October 12th, Coal Miners Day. It used to be a big deal in Illinois, a day of commemoration when thousands of miners took a day off from work, joining their families to  celebrate the heritage of mine community unionism. It marked the day when miners were killed in Virden, Illinois fighting the Chicago coal empire that sought to defeat the unions established during the living wage strike of 1897. By the end of that day in October 1898, 13 were killed, but they had stopped the designs of the Chicago-Virden Coal Company barons. You can read a little more about it here. The cemetery owner at Mt. Olive didn’t like the idea of the commemorations, so in 1899, the bodies of the miners from Mt. Olive who died in that battle were disinterred and re-buried in the the Union Miners Cemetery of the United Mine Workers local, and from that point on, the union established rituals and commemorations that built a sense of union heritage and rebellion in the southern regions of Illinois. It’s a story that isn’t much known anymore, but was part of a folk heritage elaborated on in a confusing way since the mines in the area have closed down. Union Miners Cemetery was a unique place, a site of a “spirit-thread” of history. Later, Mother Jones asked to be buried in the cemetery, with the notion that by doing so she would use her fame to ask people to remember the ordinary men and women who built unionism in Illinois and the United States. At the time, 40,000 people attended her funeral. Mother Jones was a folk hero at the time. She fought for democratic, inclusive unionism, the kind able to build a new civilization based on the worth of every human being, males and females, white and black, citizen and non-citizen, waged and unwaged labor. That’s our purpose too–to not only recover the struggles associated with Mother Jones, but to remember the ordinary people who contributed to making history. And to think about the struggles for power that were at the heart of mine community unionism. These communities deserve more than the dustbin of history, living in a secondary status because power resides at the top. Most of them struggle to survive as coal is mined with less labor or the mines have shut down. The Mother Jones Foundation in Springfield, Illinois has kept the day alive since 1984, long after most of the coal miners who had vivid memories of the origins of the day were gone. Last week folks gathered for the commemoration (and miners in earllier times didn’t always commemorate on the exact date). “Pray for the Dead, and Fight Like Hell for the Living,” we proclaimed, following Mother Jones’ famous words. I find it fitting that we launch this new website and our effort to make a museum in Mt. Olive Illinois, where the Union Miners Cemetery is now a national historic place, 115 years after the first commemoration. Our project seeks to remember this history, to think about its relevance to the present. We seek to establish a museum in Mt. Olive, as well as labor trails that would go from Pullman, where Mother Jones got her start, down to southern Illinois which was devastated by the decline in coal mining, but which is roiled by some of the same issues of lack of economic and resource control that roiled people in the era in which people rebelled more than a century ago. For now, we invite you to explore what is there. Click all of the drop down menus to see what we have posted.