Mother Jones

About the Book

Mother Jones: Revolutionary Leader of Labor and Social Reform defines Mother Jones as the most significant and relevant political voice for the working class to ever emerge from within the United States.

Although Mary Harris "Mother" Jones identified herself as a socialist, her politics coincided with revolutionary syndicalism. The duality of Socialism and Syndicalism defined her role as a leader of labor and social reform during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and structured her beliefs and attitudes about women, which paralleled her general perceptions of class warfare.

Jones has been dismissed as being simply a "hell-raiser" or reduced to a "folksy" or "colorful" old woman who endeared herself to the miners by taking up their cause. Most who wrote about her diminished or eliminated her historical and political significance by failing to establish that she changed the face of labor in this country forever. Some have even resorted to writing malicious and unprovable accusations about her. Others simply "did not do their homework."

Mother Jones: Revolutionary Leader of Labor and Social Reform sets the record straight. Ms. Wake´s extensive research brings to light the impact Mother Jones had on the labor movement for nearly half a century and reveals Jones as an intellectual and a feminist voice.

About the Author

Dorothy L. Wake was introduced to Mother Jones in a Women’s History course in 1982. She was captivated by this significant and controversial revolutionary figure, but perplexed by Jones’ historical exclusion and the anti-suffrage label that has dogged her. Ms. Wake’s discoveries of glaring discrepancies that exist between writings about Jones and her own words and actions led to expanded research in 1994. Mother Jones: Revolutionary Leader of Labor and Social Reform defines Jones as the most relevant political voice for the working class to ever emerge from within the United States. In 1996 Ms. Wake left California State government to pursue writing, poetry, and teaching. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in Government from California State University, Sacramento, and recently earned her teaching credential. She is a published writer and poet. Ms. Wake and her husband, Sam, reside in Sacramento and have two grown sons.