![]() ![]() The train track runs across Main Street today as it did in 1930 when the train from Washington brought the body of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones to her chosen place of rest.Ī short distance from the Museum, the Union Miners Cemetery holds the monument to Mother Jones and the graves of hundreds of the miners and their families that she fought for. Coal brought the immigrant mining families, as the open land had earlier brought immigrant farmers. Olive, Illinois sits on the Main Street of a small town on the prairie, in a largely rural county whose communities witnessed some of the greatest struggles for workplace justice in American history. Our interests include the contributions of Mother Jones, the development of the Union Miners Cemetery, the United Mine Workers of America, the Progressive Miners and the Women’s Auxiliary, and the impact of coal-mining, organized labor, and conflict in the stories of the families and workers who directly experienced these, and whose descendants work to keep their stories alive and relevant to today’s world. ![]() The purpose of the Friends of the Mother Jones Museum shall be to document, preserve, study, and exhibit materials and artifacts of historical significance relating to the history of coal-mining, union labor activity, and strife in local communities in southern Illinois. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |