BIO: Mary HARRIS (1837-1930) was born in a poor farming family in rural Cork. Her father, Richard HARRIS, emigrated to the U.S. first and sent for his family in 1850. Mary became a teacher and later a dressmaker, before marrying iron molder, George JONES, in 1861. Living in Memphis, TN, the couple had four children. All four died along with Jones' husband in a devastating yellow fever epidemic in 1867. Jones returned to Chicago and re-established herself as a dressmaker. Again tragedy struck when her business was consumed in the Great Fire of 1871. In the years of toil that followed, Mary grew increasingly concerned about the growing gap between the rich people for whom she worked and the poor people with whom she lived. She joined the Knights of Labor and took to active organizing. The first strike she was involved in occurred in Pittsburgh, against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1877. The local government's decision to call in the state militia, an action! that led to a bloody riot, appalled her and pushed her to take up labor activism full time. She traveled the country organizing unions, leading strikes and giving inspirational speeches. She was especially active among railroad workers and miners. By the late 1890s, "Mother Jones" was one of the most well-known figures in the labor movement, and one of its most controversial. Small in stature, she stood large in the eyes of both the workers she served and the employers she chastised. Her signature motto was "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." In 1898, Mary helped to found the Social Democratic Party . In 1904, now in her 70s, Mary wrote a scathing letter to Gov. James H. PEABODY in Denver who had ordered her deported from the state for helping strikers -- "Mr. Governor, you notified your dogs of war to put me out of the state. They complied with your instructions. I hold in my hand a letter that was handed to me by one of them, which says under no circumstances return to this state. I wish to notify you, governor, that you don't own the state. When it was admitted to the sisterhood of states, my fathers gave me a share of stock in it; and that is all they gave you. The civil courts are o! pen. If I break a law of state or nation it is the duty of the civil courts to deal with me. That is why my forefathers established those courts to keep dictators and tyrants such as you for interfering with civilians. I am right here in the capital after being out nine or ten hours, four or five blocks from your office. I want to ask you, governor, what in Hell you are going to do about it?" There apparently was no response. In 1912, the average pay for textile workers in Lawrence, MA was sixteen cents an hour. When the legislature reduced the 56-hour work week by a paltry two hours and mill owners cut pay accordingly, thousands of outraged workers, mainly women and children, stopped their looms and marched in the "Bread and Roses" strike. The Massachusetts militia attempted to drive the laborers back to work, causing at least two deaths and a profound outrage among countless unions in the country. After a month, the number of strikers in New England had reached 50 thousand. "Mother JONES" and Bill HAYWARD kept the International Workers of the World (IWW) organized. A year later, Mary played a key role in the Ludlow, CO Copper Mine strike. Mary Harris Jones always attributed her fearlessness and radicalism to her Irish heritage. "I was born in revolution," she once said. She was 91 when she worked her last strike. The "Angel of the Mines" died at age 94 in 1930. In his eulogy the Rev. J. W. McGUIRE said, "Wealthy coal operators and capitalists throughout the United States are breathing sighs of relief...Mother JONES is dead."