Born in Ireland, Mary Harris Jones immigrated to the United States as a child. After her husband and four children died in a yellow-fever epidemic in 1867, she devoted herself to the labor movement. In the 1870s she became involved with the Knights of Labor. After the organization’s decline in the late 1880s, Jones became focused on the textile and coal industries. As a supporter of the United Mine Workers, she helped lead many strikes by coalminers in West Virginia and Colorado. Over a forty-year period, Jones led five major strikes in West Virginia to unionize the miners. She also worked in a textile mill to learn about child laborers. She came to be known as Mother Jones for her elderly appearance and for her opposition to child labor. She helped found the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 but soon found the group too radical. Jones continued to support strikes when she was in her eighties.
