The Labor Movement
As industrialization began, people flocked to cities in order to work in the new factories. Yet because industrialization occurred so quickly, the government did not have time to maintain and secure the safe conditions of these facilities. In response to the terrible conditions that employees experienced, including women and children workers, the labor movement began (Pimentel).
In 1834, the first National Trades Union was founded, and, from there, the movement spread like wildfire. Numerous groups of labor activists were founded, notably including the National Labor Union, the Socialist Labor Party and the International Working People’s Association. However, many of these groups were discriminatory in their recruitment process, a trend that continued until the Knights of Labor were formed in 1869 (Pimentel).
By 1886, the labor movement had begun to spread exponentially; indeed, that year became known as the Great Upheaval, with 1,500 strikes occurring nationwide. However, at the same time, strikers and labor supporters also faced some serious losses. When a bomb exploded during a workers’ rally in Chicago that year ˗ in what came to be known as the Haymarket Square Riot - police fired at random, killing several people and wounding many others.
Employers began to use labor spies and created blacklists of union members not to hire. The courts and government generally sided with big business. They found union members guilty of conspiracy and rioting, and in 1894 President Grover Cleveland incited violent conflict when he called in national troops to disperse a strike of the Pullman Railroad Company (Pimentel).
In 1834, the first National Trades Union was founded, and, from there, the movement spread like wildfire. Numerous groups of labor activists were founded, notably including the National Labor Union, the Socialist Labor Party and the International Working People’s Association. However, many of these groups were discriminatory in their recruitment process, a trend that continued until the Knights of Labor were formed in 1869 (Pimentel).
By 1886, the labor movement had begun to spread exponentially; indeed, that year became known as the Great Upheaval, with 1,500 strikes occurring nationwide. However, at the same time, strikers and labor supporters also faced some serious losses. When a bomb exploded during a workers’ rally in Chicago that year ˗ in what came to be known as the Haymarket Square Riot - police fired at random, killing several people and wounding many others.
Employers began to use labor spies and created blacklists of union members not to hire. The courts and government generally sided with big business. They found union members guilty of conspiracy and rioting, and in 1894 President Grover Cleveland incited violent conflict when he called in national troops to disperse a strike of the Pullman Railroad Company (Pimentel).
"I have raised hell all over this country!"
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The first mention of the nickname “Mother” Jones came in 1897, when Mary was 60 years old (Gorn 57). In the years between the Chicago Fire and this time, Jones had joined the Knights of Labor (Gorn 45).
The Knights, and more generally, the entire labor movement, acted as a pseudo-family for Jones, replacing the one she had lost. Perhaps this is why she chose to call herself “Mother” Jones and play up her grandmotherly image. Regardless of her reasoning, Jones quickly became a leading figure in the labor movement. She participated in strikes across the country in industries as diverse as the railroad, textiles, mining and steel. She sometimes worked as an organizer for unions, such as the United Mine Workers, but just as often worked independently. Eventually, she helped to found the Social Democratic Party and the Industrial Workers of the World. Her methods were unconventional, to be sure. She once commanded miners’ wives to arm themselves with mops and brooms in order to keep strikebreakers from entering the mines (Horsley). This militant, adventurous image earned her the label of the “most dangerous woman in America” from her opponents, but her followers referred to her as “Labor’s Joan of Arc” (McFarland 284). |