Mother Jones Online Museum

The real life working-class hero Mary “Mother” Jones now has her own virtual museum that documents the struggles, victories and history of the woman once dubbed “America’s Most Dangerous Woman.”

The Mother Jones Museum describes itself as a “virtual museum and curricula about the amazing labor agitator.” It includes links to her entire autobiography and other documents about militant labor history. As the site states:

We believe that she still has something to teach us after all these years.

One page features my favorite Mother Jones quote:

I asked a man in prison once, how he happened to be there, and he said he had stolen loaf of bread. I told him if he had stolen a railroad, he’d be a U.S. senator.

Click here to visit the Mother Jones Museum.

You'll also find books and films available from The Union Shop Online.

Early labor history in America is marked by some vicious, hard-fought battles by workers who sometimes won and sometimes lost, but who always laid the groundwork for many of the rights and economic justice we have today. Sidney Lens’s classic “Labor Wars,” recently reissued by Haymarket Books, takes us from the Molly Maguires to struggles by autoworkers and steelworkers in the first half of the 20th century.

Los Angeles may be known for its glitz and glamour, but “Made in L.A.,” shows us one of its dirty secrets-sweatshops. The documentary tells the story of three Latina garment sweatshop workers. Sick and tired of low-pay for 12 hour-days in abysmal working conditions with abusive bosses, the trio fights back, leading a boycott and three-year struggle that transforms their lives.

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