You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Monday January 25, 1904
Chicago, Illinois - Chapter of Women's Trade Union League Formed at Hull House
Mary McDowell
A local chapter of the National Women's Trade Union League was formed at a meeting at Hull House earlier this month. Based on the British prototype, the stated purpose of the league is to increase the organization of women into the trade unions. Women's unions as well as individual pro-union women are accepted into membership. Men, who support women in the trade unions are also welcome as members.
Reported in the January 5th edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune:
The first meeting of the Illinois branch of the National Women's Trades union league was held at Hull house yesterday afternoon, when the following officers were elected:
President-Miss Mary McDowell.
Vice president-Miss Maud Sutton.
Secretary-Miss Gertrude Barnum.
Treasurer-Mrs. Charles Henrotin.
The national organization, of which Miss Jane Addams is vice president was formed last month in Boston during the convention of the American Federation of Labor, the league being founded under the auspices of that body....
SOURCES
Chicago Daily Tribune
(Chicago, Illinois)
-of Jan 5, 1904
The Trade Union Woman
-by Alice Henry
D. Appleton and Company, 1915
-page 63 using scroll bar at bottom of document
http://books.google.com/...
See also:
HJ-Nov 17, 1903
http://www.dailykos.com/...
HJ-Nov 20, 1903
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Photo: Mary McDowell
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
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Sunday January 25, 1914
From the Muskogee Times-Democrat: Mother Jones on Bandits and Soldiers
Just who the special correspondent is in the following article, is not stated, nor do we know exactly when the following interview with Mother Jones took place. The dateline is Denver, Jan. 24, but, as we all know, Mother is now in the Military Bastille down in Trinidad. Nevertheless, we find the following article to be of great interest:
What Mother Jones Thinks of Mexican "Bandits" and Colorado "Soljers"
(Special Correspondence.)
Denver, Col., Jan. 24. Mother Jones, a general in an army of 445,000 miners, came back to Denver recently after a campaign in Chihuahua with General Pancho Villa. She told of the battle there in a militant fashion, in the straightforward fashion she ever does.
"I was down there for ten days," said the 82-yer-old veteran in the struggle for human rights. "And it's the same fight those stalwart fellows are leading there that's being carried on in Calumet, in Colorado, in every place where private greed had extirpated human right!
"They call Villa a Pancho-meaning bandit-they sneer at his men as robbers and brigands, but theirs is the same struggle for rights that we fight now in our mining districts! And treat me well? Why, those soldiers cared for me even as my boys of the mine camps do. You ask why I went? Because I wanted to see the sort they are. I was in El Paso and went to the interior.
"And I'm going to help those fellows, too. You know, up at Paint Creek in West Virginia, where the militia persecuted my boys, we had a machine gun-I had it, and it's there yet too-but I'm to send it tho the south-to Mexico, and it'll help redress wrongs there just as it did in the fight against the coal barons!
"But maybe you'd better not mention that. They might hang me for treason!
"That was an interesting time I had, though. They were just through sacking Chihuahua and I was interested in the foundries and smelter places they have there. They went right on at their work all the time and didn't seem a bit concerned about it.
"There were land robbers who had millions of acres of land that they had thieved and Villa soon put them to flight, believe me or no!
"I'm getting old now and I've fought the good fight. Eighty-two, you know, and when I got back from Mexico the other day and reached Trinidad those brave American "soljers" grabbed me again. Hustled me right to the train at a bayonet's point. Fine sight I was!" Mother Jones laughed. "Me-82, hair white, as harmless as a 'chessy' cat, and eight young fellers afraid to touch me lest I'd pizen 'em.' so they sent me up here.
"Perhaps I'll go back to Mexico where the 'bandits' are gentlemen."
SOURCE
Muskogee Times-Democrat
(Muskogee, Oklahoma)
-of Jan 24, 1914
Note: this article is a fascinating find! but requires more research. Apparently this correspondent managed to get an interview with Mother Jones while she was confined by the military at San Rafael Hospital! Most reports indicate that she was held incommunicado. There are some good cartoon-type drawings with the article.
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Saturday January 25, 2014
More on Mary McDowell and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butchers
Time passed on, and one evening during the winter of 1903 Miss Mary McDowell, of the University of Chicago Settlement, was talking at a Union Label League meeting, and she brought out some facts from what she knew of the condition of the women workers in the packing-houses, showing what a menace to the whole of the working world was the underpaid woman. This got into the papers, and Maggie Condon and her sister read it, and felt that here was a woman who understood. And she was in their own district, too.
So it came about that the Maud Gonne Club became slowly transformed into a real union. This took quite a while. The girls interested used to come over once a week to the Settlement, where Michael Donnelly was their tutor and helper. Miss McDowell carefully absented herself, feeling that she wanted the girls to manage their own affairs, until it transpired that they wished her to be there, and thought it strange that she should be so punctilious. After that she attended almost every meeting. When they felt ready, they obtained the charter with eight charter members and were known as Local 183 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America. Little by little the local grew in numbers.
[paragraph added]
SOURCE
See Henry above
-page 54 using scroll bar at bottom of document
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Tierra del Silencio-Pancho Villa Band