It took a class of 1st graders to teach me someting about the most dangerous woman in America!!!

[Omaha Steve]

Last edited Tue Apr 23, 2013, 10:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Our granddaughter had a class singing recital tonight. The pianist explained the following children's folk song was based on union organizing. I gave the pianist a big hug and thanked her for teaching me something after the show.


http://www.h2g2.com/approved_entry/A46378281

Snip: Mother Jones

Mary Harris was born in County Cork, Ireland, and went to the USA with her parents as a child. She trained to be a teacher, and in 1861 married George Jones, an iron moulder and union organiser from Tennessee. They had four children, but George and all of the children died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1867. She then moved to Chicago, where she worked as a dressmaker until she lost her shop in the 'Chicago Fire' of 1871.

Over the next few years Jones became more and more involved in the union movement. She was involved in the rail strike of 1877 in Pittsburgh. In 1899, she was organising the coal fields in Pennsylvania. In 1911, she was in Mexico; she was arrested at Homestead in 1919; and was working with dressmakers in Chicago in 1924.

Her reporting of the issues was in a language ordinary people could understand. This is from an article originally published in The International Socialist Review in March 1901:

I visited the factory in Tuscaloosa, Ala., at 10 o'clock at night. The superintendent, not knowing my mission, gave me the entire freedom of the factory, and I made good use of it. Standing by a siding that contained 155 spindles were two little girls. I asked a man standing near if the children were his, and he replied that they were. 'How old are they?' I asked. 'This one is 9, the other 10,' he replied. 'How many hours do they work?' 'Twelve,' was the answer. 'How much do they get a night?' 'We all three together get 60 cents. They get 10 cents each and I 40.' I watched them as they left their slave-pen in the morning and saw them gather their rags around their frail forms to hide them from the wintry blast. Half-fed, half-clothed, half-housed, they toil on, while the poodle dogs of their masters are petted and coddled and sleep on pillows of down, and the capitalistic judges jail the agitators that would dare to help these helpless ones to better their condition.

She was described as 'the most dangerous woman in America' by Reese Blizzard, the West Virginia district attorney. Sandberg suggested this was the figure the workers sang about: the 'she' who was 'coming round the mountain'.

The identity of 'she', however, doesn't worry the countless adults and children who have happily sang along on journeys and round campfires.


http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/s004.html


She'll be coming round the mountain
When she comes

(Toot, toot!)

She'll be coming round the mountain
When she comes

(Toot, toot!)

She'll be coming round the mountain,
She'll be coming round the mountain,
She'll be coming round the mountain
When she comes

(Toot, toot!)



She'll be driving six white horses
When she comes

(Whoa back!)

She'll be driving six white horses
When she comes

(Whoa back!)

She'll be driving six white horses,
She'll be driving six white horses,
She'll be driving six white horses
When she comes

(Whoa back! Toot, toot!)



Oh, we'll all go out to meet her
When she comes

(Hi babe!)

Oh, we'll all go out to meet her
When she comes

(Hi babe!)

Oh, we'll all go out to meet her,
We'll all go out to meet her,
We'll all go out to meet her
When she comes

(Hi babe!
Whoa back! Toot, toot!)



She'll be wearing red pajamas
When she comes

(Scratch, scratch)

She'll be wearing red pajamas
When she comes

(Scratch, scratch)

She'll be wearing red pajamas,
She'll be wearing red pajamas,
She'll be wearing red pajamas
When she comes

(Scratch, scratch, Hi babe!
Whoa back! Toot, toot!)



She will have to sleep with Grandma
When she comes

(She snores!)

She will have to sleep with Grandma
When she comes

(She snores!)

She will have to sleep with Grandma,
She'll have to sleep with Grandma,
She will have to sleep with Grandma
When she comes

(She snores!
Scratch, scratch, Hi babe!
Whoa back! Toot, toot!)

[MrSlayer]

1. She will HAVE to sleep with grandma when she comes.

Yeah…

[Sekhmets Daughter]

2. I never knew Mother Jones was the 'she' in that song!

[Brigid]

3. Neither did I.

And kids need to know this stuff.

[Fawke Em]

4. And, she's related to little ole me!

Yay!

[rurallib]

5. how, how, how?

She is like royalty to me.

[Fawke Em]

15. Just now saw this.

I'm editing this to let the poster know the connection. It's Macgill to Harris. I had to go look it up. That was in 1760. I don't call myself "Lil" and no one knows me as "Nancy."

What I do know is that I can see the connection, but I need to learn more.

My Republican Grandma read Mother Jones and she was the genealogist who made me this huge chart before ancestry.com was born. She's the one who told me the connection and I can see the thread, but, you know... I need to go look that up.

We're both of Cork and Tennessee.

[colorado_ufo]

7. Fantastic!

[Boomerproud]

6. We desperately need a Mother Jones in todays world.

She'd be vilified, but would have the courage to speak truth to power.

[getting old in mke]

8. "We count it death to falter, not to die."

I had a major spiritual experience once.

I had finished a week's consulting in Peoria and, instead of heading straight back to Milwaukee drove down to St. Louis to visit friends whose daughter was undergoing some major and painful surgery.

I'd stopped Friday night somewhere around Springfield and was taking the last part Saturday morning. I found myself pulling off for a break at an exit for a town I'd never heard of and drove around a bit, looking for a park or some place to stretch my legs. I wandered and found what looked like an old cemetery, and the sign said "Union Miners Cemetery" and I thought "okay." I saw an obelisk near the back, so parked and walked back.

And it turned out to be Mother Jones's grave. And a memorial to the miners who died in labor wrangles in the first few decades of the 20th century, named and dated with the mines/labor actions they were killed at.

I don't think that the skies opened and the sun shone down from a previously troubled sky, but it sure felt like it!

http://www.minewar.org/?p=141

http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/union-miners-cemetary.html

[HiPointDem]

10. wish i could rec this post.

[Omaha Steve]

9. Thank you for the response

I did share this post with some non-DU friends.

[Sherman A1]

11. K&R

[Fantastic Anarchist]

12. She was anarchist sympathizers ...

... and an anarchist in deed. God love her!

[myrna minx]

13. Interesting. K&R

[KoKo]

14. Recommend!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

16. Did they mention that she was opposed to women's suffrage?

That shouldn't undermine the many good things she achieved, but it's worth knowing if you're going to idolise her.

[jtuck004]

17. But do you know why? She had 4 children and a husband, lost them all to one of the yellow fever

epidemics that stuck Memphis several times over the years - open sewers, was considered one of the filthiest and foulest smelling places on earth by some.

It may well be that she could never understand why women (or men) wouldn't want what was rather cruelly taken from her.

One should also note that she thought working with the system would spell disaster for the workers, as the paternalistic attitude of the unions, such as the AF of L, and their allegiance to business would undermine worker's sovereignty and self-determination. Turns out she was right about that.

She was anti-suffrage, but mostly she was against women participating in a system that would co-op and deny them a voice, and didn't see voting as a particularly helpful path to achieve that goal. Given that elected officials worked closely with the business owners and the mercenaries they hired to kill women, children, and men, I'm not so sure she was wrong in her viewpoint.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

18. I am quite, quite sure she was wrong on that specific issue. N.T.

[jtuck004]

19. So do a lot of people who aren't doing a damn thing for "working poor" women, even though

they benefit from their votes.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. I learned a slightly different version of this song

Nothing about sleeping with Grandma or wearing pajamas.

Substitute verses were about "frying the old red rooster" and "having chicken and dumplings".