Mother Jones Monument

Mary Harris Jones, aka Mother Jones, was born in Ireland and immigrated to Canada as a result of the Great Famine. She settled in Memphis, Tennessee, where her family died during the Yellow Fever Epidemic. Then, she moved to Chicago where her business was destroyed by the Great Fire in Chicago. Then, she became a prominent labor organizer. Mother Jones co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. She became known as "the miners" angel. This is a unique place in the history of the labor movement; it was the only union-owned cemetery in the country. This is a place with a monument to Mother Jones, but it also evokes the power and potential of the labor movement. It is a place of reflection and remembering, of thinking of the labor movement’s roots. It is a shrine not only to Jones but to the sacrifices that connected human rights and labor rights, a place where people wonder when and why labor lost power.