Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Worker's Rights

Like Betsy Harvey Kraft's Mother Jones (1995) and Susan Bartoletti's Growing Up in Coal Country (1996), this account of the noted labor leader is also a social history of American workers' struggle for safety, shorter hours, and the end of child labor. Readers will be caught by the fierce personality of this brave woman, so ahead of her time, who dared to stand up to presidents and financiers for the rights of ordinary people. It's a story of amazing courage and determination; it's also about failure, again and again, as strikes failed, workers died, and conditions seemed never to improve. Compelling black-and-white photos throughout show the gray-haired lady--whose demure appearance belied her determination--marching with miners, railroad workers, and women and children. Josephson draws a lot on Mother Jones' candid autobiography, as well as on accounts by labor historians, and the quotes are unobtrusively documented at the back of the book.