Getting to Know Mary Harris 'Mother' Jones

In America, there used to be unfair laws and regulations regarding labor. Children are put to work in harsh conditions, conditions often deemed difficult even for adults, and are forced to work ridiculous hours. Florence Kelley gave a speech at the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905. In her speech, Kelley uses repetition, pathos, imagery, logos, and carefully placed diction to express how child labor is morally wrong and inhumane.

In Florence Kelley’s speech delivered to the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1905, the author employs empathetic repetition, strong facts, and piteous diction to inspire as many people as possible to work against child labor.

Florence Kelley is a social worker and reformer who fights for child labor laws and better working conditions for women. At the National Assembly Women Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905, Kelley recites a speech about the issue of child labor laws. She uses rhetorical strategies such as repetition of the many negative aspects of child labor through specific examples, criticism of state policies, and emotional appeal. A combination of figures, logic, evidence, and emotional appeal will help convince her audience that child labor is a problem.

Throughout coal country during the early 1900's you could find the fiery spirited Mother Jones; a union organizer for the United Mine Workers. Mother Jones fought tirelessly to bring together the ‘rank-and-file miners' in order to improve their working conditions, wages, and give them a voice in the workplace. What made Mother Jones the most feared woman in the 1900's was her power of conviction. Her speeches were extremely moving, which called men to action, and if her energy and passion were not enough she would embarrass them, calling their manliness into question. Mother Jones was so moving she was also able to call the mothers and children of the mineworkers to aid in their efforts. She was one of the most successful union organizers

Mother Jones was a kind person who helped fight for child labor laws. The text states, “Nationwide, eighty thousand children worked in the textile industry. In the South, Mother Jones had seen how dangerous their jobs were. Barefooted little girls and boys reached their tiny hands into the treacherous machinery to repair snapped threads or crawled underneath the machinery to oil it. At textile union headquarters, Mother Jones met more of these mill children. Their bodies were bone-thin, with hollow chests. Their shoulders were rounded from long hours spent hunched over the workbenches. Even worse, she saw ‘some with their hands off, some with the thumb missing, some with their fingers off at the knuckles’—victims of mill accidents” (Pinkerton Josephson). This shows the struggle the children had to go through in the factories. Mother Jones wanted to fight for their rights just because she wanted justice for the children. Pinkerton Josephson says, “Mother Jones, now seventy-three, gathered a large group of mill children and their parents. She led them on a one-mile march from Philadelphia’s Independence Square to its courthouse lawn. Mother Jones and a few

Since she was a woman during that time period, she didn't have a voice or the constitutional right to vote yet. So the only way she felt she could help the children was to speak to those who could help them: the men. An example of her talking to the men was, “If the mothers and the teachers in Georgia could vote, would the Georgia Legislature have refused at every session for the last three years to stop the work in the mills of children under twelve years of age?” and “Would the New Jersey Legislature have passed that shameful repeal bill enabling girls of fourteen years to work all night, if the mothers in New Jersey were enfranchised?” In these quotes she was saying that if women had a political voice, would the Georgia and the New Jersey Legislatures had refused or passed those bills? The answer would be no, because only the men could have done something about that. She also said, “We can enlist the Working Men on behalf of our enfranchisement just in proportion as we strive with them to free the children.” and “We should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children from toil!” In these statements, she was targeting the women in the audience saying that they need to convince the men to help out the children because they had a voice and they didn't.

Since capitalism has existed, children have been able to work. These children have worked in the harshest conditions and the longest hours. With thousands of children working in the United States, social worker Florence Kelley decided something needed to be done about it. So on July 22, 1905, she delivered a speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), analyzing, and explaining the problems with children in the workplace. She uses the rhetorical strategy, cause and effect, to exemplify the pros and cons of child labor at the time. Kelley later explains how her thoughts can reflect on the future of child labor in the United States.

Over the years people have been worried about their young children working in factories or many other dangerous circumstances. With in these years people have also been concerned with their equal rights. Women tend to be treated or paid unfairly when compared to their men colleagues. Before 1938 factories would hire children to do the same dangerous and high- risk jobs that fully grown men were doing. If there were fully grown adults getting injured on the job, one can only imagine what would happen to a kid. In 1923, women and some men tried to make everything equal for women. They worked towards something called equal rights. This movement was thought up by people who supported women's rights, to make things more equal. Women wanted fair

“I live in the Untied States, but I do not know exactly where. My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression…. My address is like my shoes: it travels with me.… I abide where there is a fight against wrong,” remarked Mary Jones in her infamous speech, “Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Coal Miners”, on August 15, 1912 as she addressed William E. Glasscock, Governor of the State of West Virginia (Jones 69). Mary Harris Jones, benevolently known as Mother Jones, dedicated her life to the inequalities that coal miners and children faced during this era. Despite her many hardships she took a stand for making a progressive change. Mother Jones, a motivation speaker and

Mother Jones was a kind person who helped fight for child labor laws. The text states, “Nationwide, eighty thousand children worked in the textile industry. In the South, Mother Jones had seen how dangerous their jobs were. Barefooted little girls and boys reached their tiny hands into the treacherous machinery to repair snapped threads or crawled underneath the machinery to oil it. At textile union headquarters, Mother Jones met more of these mill children. Their bodies were bone-thin, with hollow chests. Their shoulders were rounded from long hours spent hunched over the workbenches. Even worse, she saw “some with their hands off, some with the thumb missing, some with their fingers off at the knuckles”—victims of mill accidents” (Josephson 4). This shows the struggle the children had to go through in the factories. Mother Jones wanted to fight for their rights just because she wanted justice for the children. Josephson says in paragraph 7, “Mother Jones, now seventy-three, gathered a large group of mill children and their parents. She led them on a one-mile march from Philadelphia’s Independence Square to its courthouse lawn. Mother Jones and a few children

Rosa Parks, a very important and influential black woman in history. When a student is learning about Blacks fighting for equal rights, it is almost certain that the name “Rosa Parks” will be mentioned. The story that students are taught is that she was a quiet woman who had had enough and refused to give up her seat on the bus, which is not entirely true. Yes, Ms. Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man because she was sick and tired of being treated in such a horrible way, but she was not as quiet as everyone was taught to believe. Some might even say that history got the great Rosa Parks story wrong. An author by the name of Jeanne Theoharis definitely agrees to that. She agrees strongly that she wrote an article titled “How History Got the Rosa Parks Story Wrong”.

She helped out the ones that were trying to help the ones that wanted the black people be free. Which did happen because of Martin Luther King Jr. She it was best if that happened. She wanted happiness. Her masters wanted her to do their stuff. They wanted her to do their chores. Unlike everyone else. They want her to be their personal slave but wherever there master and mistress wants them to go that’s where they go. They went to different states. But, when they were close to Free states they ran away from their owners. They wanted to be okay and good for their sakes.

She impacted this country through the candid and raw stories she shared about slaves being treated as property. It showed the way families were ripped apart. Uncle Tom’s Cabin showed slavery in a way never seen before and revealed its true evil and cruelty. “It became the best-selling book of the 19th century, second only to the Bible, and galvanized the abolition movement, leading to the outbreak of the Civil War. It changed public opinion, created characters still talked about, influenced ideas about equity, and fomented revolution from Russia to Cuba.”

Mother Jones believed that working children needed more pay and less harsh working conditions. Josephson says, “In countless shacks and shanties across the country, she had tied the shoes of children, wiped their noses, hugged them while they cried, scrambled to find food for them, fought for their rights” (Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers’ Rights). Jones may not have lived through the conditions Chavez or Watson had, but she was still just as passionate and devoted activist as any other. At one point, Mother Jones made an important decision, “She and the textile union leaders would stage their own tour. They would march the mill children all the way to the president of the United States—Theodore Roosevelt. Mother Jones wanted the president to get Congress to pass a law that would take children out of the mills,

Her main exposition involved the simple belief that child labor was wrong, any way you look at it, and that remains true today, nearly two hundred years later.