The most famous female labor activist of the nineteenth century, Mary Harris Jones—aka “Mother Jones”—was a self-proclaimed “hell-raiser” in the cause of economic justice. She was so strident that a US attorney once labeled her “the most dangerous woman in America.”
Born circa August 1, 1837 in County Cork, Ireland, Jones immigrated to Toronto, Canada, with her family at age five—prior to the potato famine with its waves of Irish immigrants.
She first worked as a teacher in a Michigan Catholic school, then as a seamstress in Chicago. She moved to Memphis for another teaching job, and in 1861 married George Jones, a member of the Iron Molders Union. They had four children in six years. In 1867, tragedy struck when her entire family died in a yellow fever epidemic; she dressed in black for the rest of her life.
Returning to Chicago, Jones resumed sewing but lost everything she owned in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. She found solace at Knights of Labor meetings, and in 1877, took up the cause of working people. Jones focused on the rising number of working poor during industrialization, especially as wages shrunk, hours increased, and workers had no insurance for unemployment, healthcare or old age.
Jones first displayed her oratorical and organizing abilities in Pittsburgh during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. She took part in and led hundreds of strikes, including those that led to the Haymarket riot in Chicago in 1886. She paused briefly to publish The New Right in 1899 and a two-volume Letter of Love and Labor in 1900 and 1901. A beloved leader, the workers she organized nicknamed her “Mother Jones.”
Beginning in 1900, Jones focused on miners, organizing in the coal fields of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. For a few years, she was employed by the United Mine Workers, but left when the national leadership disavowed a wildcat strike in Colorado. After a decade in the West, Jones returned to West Virginia, where, after a violent strike in 1912-1913, she was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Public appeals on her behalf convinced the governor to commute her twenty-year sentence. Afterward she returned to Colorado and made a national crusade out of the tragic events during the Ludlow Massacre, even lobbying President Woodrow Wilson. Later, she participated in several industrial strikes on the East Coast between 1915 and 1919 and continued to organize miners well into her nineties.
Despite her radicalism, Jones did not support women’s suffrage, arguing that “you don’t need a vote to raise hell.” She pointed out that the women of Colorado had the vote and failed to use it to prevent the appalling conditions that led to labor violence. She also considered suffragists unwitting dupes of class warfare. Jones argued that suffragists were naïve women who unwittingly acted as duplicitous agents of class warfare.
Although Jones organized working class women, she held them in auxiliaries, maintaining that—except when the union called—a woman’s place was in the home. A reflection of her Catholic heritage, she believed that men should be paid well enough so that women could devote themselves to motherhood.
In 1925, she published her Autobiography of Mother Jones. She is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois.
"I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser."
Mother Jones
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All I know about attachment styles in relationships is that fearful avoidance people tends to pair up with anxious attachment people. Dunno why cause they both activate the worst tendencies of the other.
If this person isn't ready, then they aren't ready so what's the concern? Do you feel like you're being strung along? Or that this person just doesn't have it in them to reject you outright? You can't really do anything here, I don't think anyway, because from how you're describing this it's not even a relationship or a friendship turning into something more. It's just two people who had a spark and one of them is, apparently, not ready to actually have a romantic relationship even though the other one is. So don't sweat it. They'll be ready or not, don't hold up your own life waiting for them to make a decision cause depending on how it goes it could be years.
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IG the concern is just that i like them and am attached and want things to work out. idk sometimes it's that simple, though my brain does feel tempted to pathologize getting attached quickly sometimes.we met through a dating app so it's true it's not a preexisting friendship but we've definitely become friends (in addition to the other more lovey stuff) through exploring our potential romantic connect - we've gotten pretty close pretty fast and i want us to stay in each other's lives in a way that feels good & safe for both of us and which meets both our needs and some of their fears/internal stuff feels like it could be jeopardizing that.
To your options listed yeah i guess i'm a little afraid of being strung along, or just of things ending badly or sooner than i would hope in general. but i had some of these fears before they brought these attachment issues up with me and what has often helped is reframing catastrophic thinking about things not Ultimately Working Out to "i'm going to enjoy the process of getting to know this person who makes me feel happy when we're together, and be grateful for the connection i have with them for as long as it exists in my life, even if it doesn't last" which i suppose hasn't fundamentally changed just b/c there are added complications
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It's unusual to form an attachment as intense as your describing from just a handful of meetings - not impossible! But if I were you I'd look up "limmerance" and see if any of it vibes with you.Just going with the flow sounds like a really solid plan though! I mean, ultimately you can't convince them to take a chance on a romantic relationship with you if they really aren't ready to take a chance on anybody. No article or book or conversation is gonna flip the switch in their brain to suddenly being open to dating, that's the kinda change they have to be ready to make when they're ready to make it. There's nothing wrong with telling them how you feel and saying you think they should give it a try, but there's no actionable thing for you to do besides that. Sometimes people have been so wounded they can never really be vulnerable again, and you can't fix that.
Give things a try but don't waste months, or God forbid years, waiting for them to be okay with dating you. Move on and try relationships with someone more open to actually having a relationship - eventually! Just going with the flow for now is good. Especially don't give up on other romantic connections if you end up being just friends.
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Aaaaah sorry this is getting to be a lot of context to type out in a megathread vent post. So to clarify: it's def early but a lot more than a few meetings (we've been seeing each other for 2-3ish months, regular text/phone contact between meetings and see each other in person about once a week, typically spend most of the day together). again that's def still very early, i'm coming off an almost 9 year partnership so very much feel that. but i think long enough to feel something genuine for someone. neither of us are dating around at the moment so it is kinda a de facto relationship albeit a very very young one.she hasn't said "i'm not ready for a serious relationship, period" but has just been up front that this has been and will be a problem and feels more triggered/scared the more "real" things feel between us. i guess she just has profoundly mixed feelings and a lot of fear. idt quasi-strangers on the internet are gonna be able to give me definitive answers and "whatever will be, will be" is to a large extent the truth. i just find my friends and family to be shit at this kind of thing and wanted somewhere where my feelings might be heard a bit that's all. i'm familiar with limerence but i think this is just a genuine connection, sometimes you do find those and it's really as simple as that. if it doesn't work out i'd def be v sad but i'd move on, it might be hard to find another strong connect like this one but def not impossible and i know i would eventually.
i guess im just at a crossroads of deciding whether this is a source of discomfort/uncertainty i'm willing to navigate with this person, or whether this particular issue is enough for me to bail in order to guard my heart from future hurt.