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Mary Harris Jones

Irish-born American labor and community organizer (1837–1930)

  • Fame60.9
  • Momentum16.2
  • Wikipedia12.1K
Source-basedRising
Lived 1830–1930, aged 100
WritersWriter / Author
  • Wikipedia
    60 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1830–1930
    Aged 100
  • Awards
    2
    recognised works
Summary
Updated 2026-09-08

A district attorney called her "the most dangerous woman in America" in 1902 — not for bombs or crime, but for teaching miners' wives how to shame strikebreakers and mobilizing children to march on a president's doorstep.

Biography

About

Mary Harris Jones taught school and sewed dresses until yellow fever killed her husband and four children in 1867. Four years later the Great Chicago Fire burned her shop to the ground. She turned to labor organizing, working first with the Knights of Labor and then the United Mine Workers, and by the 1890s had taken the name Mother Jones. She coordinated major strikes, stood with miners' families against owners, and helped co-found the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1903, angry that Pennsylvania's child labor laws went unenforced in the mines and mills, she led a children's march from Ph…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Mary Harris Jones

Mary Harris Jones
said
If you ever saw a policeman with a club in his hand, I want to ask you, did you ever see that policeman club a millionaire?
— Speech in Princeton, WV. (15 August 1920)
Mary Harris Jones
said
The old condition is passing away. The new dawn of another civilized nation is breaking into the lives of the human race.
— Speech in Williamson, WV. (20 June 1920)
Mary Harris Jones
said
I don't care about political parties. I went down to the Greenback parties, to the Populist party, in fact I went through them all.
— Speech in Peoria, Illinois, 6 April 1919. The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones, Edited by Edward M. Steel
Mary Harris Jones
said
Look at this watch of mine. Two hands there, nice looking, but let me take the hands out and it will be no good.
— Speech in Peoria, Illinois, 6 April 1919. The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones, Edited by Edward M. Steel
Mary Harris Jones
said
And why were these things done?
— Regarding the military violence against the miners in the 1903 Cripple Creek strike, part of the Colorado Labor Wars.
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
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By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Rising
60.9
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum16.2
Historical24.4
Now attention2.4
Source confidence60.0
Completeness60.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
—
Category rank
—
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence