Grand Icon of American Labor
Known from America's east coast to west coast as "Mother Jones", Mary Harris became American Labor's heroine from the 1890's until her death in 1930. Buried with her "boys" in the Union Miners Cemetery, Mount Olive, Illinois, she remains a potent symbol of labors on-going struggle for the fruits of its labor. She was an organizer and champion of the working people. While in her eighties, she was court-martialed and jailed by the State Militia of West Virginia. During the famous coalmine strike of 1913-14 she was "deported" from Colorado by the military of that state! A West Virginia prosecutor called her "the most dangerous woman in America".
Mollie Lieber West
A Life in the Struggle.
While still a teenager she experienced a baptism under fire during the citywide demonstration in support of the Republic Steel strikers, where ten died in the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937. Radicalized by that event, Mollie West plunged into labor politics and union building. As a mature woman she entered the printing trade, becoming an expert proofreader and union activist. She was elected to the Executive Board of her union, and has been a Delegate to the Chicago Federation of Labor, and to the Illinois State AFL-CIO, as well. She was a founding member of Chicago CLUW. She has been the Administrative Secretary and full-time volunteer at the office of the Illinois Labor History Society for over twenty years.