Shandon’s Mary was the Mother of all battlers

After the death of her husband and four children, Mary Jones risked her life for decades fighting for US workers’ rights says Nicola Depuis.

THE best introduction to labour organiser, Mother Mary Jones, is her own words: “I’m not a humanitarian. I’m a hell-raiser.” In 50 years of campaigning to improve the working conditions of children, miners and textile workers, Mother Jones was frequently imprisoned.

She impacted the labour movement in America so much that she was denounced in the senate as “the grandmother of all agitators”, and described as “the most dangerous woman in America”.