{"id":1954,"date":"2019-09-03T08:52:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T12:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2019-09-03T08:52:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T12:52:54","slug":"monday-missive-9-2-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2019\/09\/03\/monday-missive-9-2-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive 9\/2\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Remembering Mother Jones on Labor Day<\/strong>\u00a0— Since Labor Day always falls on a Monday, I have written about Labor Day in several of my Monday Missives over the years.\u00a0 While contemplating the focus for this week’s Monday Missive, I gave some thought to writing about another labor novel.\u00a0 I wrote about John Steinbeck’s labor novel titled\u00a0In\u00a0Dubious Battle<\/em>\u00a0in the Monday Missive that I wrote on Labor Day in 2016, so I thought it might be time to pick another labor novel to highlight, but which one?\u00a0 I decided to enter the phrase\u00a0labor novels<\/em>\u00a0in Google and see what titles showed up most often.\u00a0 Lists of famous labor novels popped up just as I expected, but to my surprise, I also came across lists of novels that deal with childbirth and motherhood.\u00a0 Well, this surprise prompted me to think about famous mothers associated with the labor movement, and Mother Jones immediately came to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowadays many people associate the name Mother Jones with the magazine that goes by this name, but there really was a labor leader named Mother Jones.\u00a0 Her official name was Mary Harris Jones, but for much of her adult life, everybody called her Mother Jones.\u00a0 She was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1837.\u00a0 At the age of ten, she moved to Canada with her family.\u00a0 After attending school in Toronto, she moved to the United States where she worked first as a teacher and then as a dressmaker.\u00a0 In 1861 she married George Jones, who was a member of the National Union of Iron Moulders, and he introduced her to America’s fledgling labor movement.\u00a0 They settled in Memphis and had four children, but her children and her husband all died in 1867 when a yellow fever epidemic swept through Memphis. Following this personal tragedy, Mother Jones moved to Chicago where she became increasingly involved in union activities. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout her many years as a labor organizer, Mother Jones worked on behalf of exploited children.\u00a0 She fought to end child labor and improve the living conditions of children from mining communities and textile factory towns.\u00a0 In 1903, she organized a massive event billed as a “Children’s Crusade” in which children who worked in mines and textile mills marched and carried signs demanding an end to child labor.\u00a0 Mother Jones’s dedication to helping children, workers, and immigrants is reflected in her most famous quotation: \u00a0“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we celebrate this Labor Day, I think we should take a moment to remember Mother Jones.\u00a0 For those who want to know more about her eventful life, I recommend\u00a0The Autobiography of Mother\u00a0Jones.<\/em>\u00a0This book came out in\u00a01925, just five years before her death in 1930.\u00a0 I read her autobiography when I was a college student, but I still remember being impressed with her life story and her unwavering commitment to helping the most vulnerable members of our society.\u00a0 She died nearly ninety years ago, but the story of her life still resonates today. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kudos<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greg Wickliff<\/strong>\u00a0recently presented at paper titled “Communicating Mathematics and Science” at the\u00a015th International Conference of The Mathematics Education for the Future Project at Maynooth University in Kildare, Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quirky Quiz Question<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Mother Jones was one of the founders of a union whose members were often called Wobblies.\u00a0 What is the name of this union? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week’s answer: The Little House<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nIn addition to writing Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel <\/em>and Katy and the Big Snow<\/em>, Virginia Lee Burton wrote a famous picture book about an anthropomorphic building.  This picture book won the Caldecott Medal.  What is the title of this book?
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Remembering Mother Jones on Labor Day\u00a0— Since Labor Day always falls on a Monday, I have written about Labor Day in several of my Monday Missives over the years.\u00a0 While contemplating the focus for this week’s Monday Missive, I gave some thought to writing about another labor novel.\u00a0 I wrote about John Steinbeck’s labor novel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-missive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1958,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions\/1958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}