Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children, written by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter

Mary Harris Jones was not afraid to make people mad. In the latter part of the 19th and early 20th century, this fearless woman brought attention to the practices of industries that kept workers in inhumane conditions. Having immigrated, as a child with her family, from Ireland to America via Canada to escape the potato famine, she became a dressmaker, married and had a family of four children. Jones was no stranger to personal tragedy, losing her husband and children to the yellow fever epidemic of 1876 and her home and business in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. She then turned her considerable energy to the cause of labor at the time industrialization was changing the face of working conditions across America. She traveled the country as a labor activist, earning the name “Mother Jones” as she supported workers who toiled long hours in the coal, textile, and railroad industries, suffering low pay and no protections in their work. 

In the picture book Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children, author Jonah Winter and illustrator Nancy Carpenter bring alive the march Mother Jones led in 1903: the Children’s Crusade from Philadelphia to President Franklin Roosevelt’s home on Long Island. The march highlighted the unbearable conditions for child workers in the textile industry. Jones gathered an “army” of many children and a few adults, called the newspapers, and began the journey to see the president. The young workers carried signs that read “We want to go to school” and expressed the need to play, to be in the fresh air and at home more than ten and eleven hour shifts at the factory allowed. By the time the parade reached New York City there were just thirty-seven stalwart kids left marching up Fourth Avenue by torchlight. A very small group traveled further, to President Roosevelt’s mansion on Long Island, only to be told the President was not at home. Was their march a failure? No. It shined a clear light on unjust working conditions for children, paving the way for significant changes in labor laws to protect young people. Winter’s first-person narrative and Carpenter’s panoramic art capture in a very engaging manner the enormous determination of Mother Jones and her passion for economic justice. In the words of a review by Horn Book Magazine, the book’s theme hits home: “…progress is worth fighting for, and may not show immediate success.” Ages 5-9. Schwartz & Wade / Penguin Random House, 2020.

 

For more information about Mother Jones, readers can consult these resources of the Library of Congress: https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-mother-jones.