Mother Jones

Mother Jones: Raising Cain and Consciousness by Simon Cordery  213 pp.

I knew very little about Mother Jones aside from the fact that she was a union organizer. This small book gives quite detailed descriptions of her travels and travails. In many ways, the legendary Mother Jones was also a legend in her own mind. She frequently inflated or even fabricated stories about herself and the miners and railroad men and their families to make a point. Much of what she said and did would not stand up to the scrutiny of today's mass media, including her claims to be at events she never attended and inflating her age by several years in order to seem older than she really was. Her grand 100th birthday celebration took place when she was in her early 90s. In spite of her not-quite-truthful image, she was a tireless fighter for the rights of mistreated miners and railroad men and opponent of child labor.