"Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living," said Mary Harris Jones. Better known in history books as Mother Jones, she was one of the most inspiring and controversial labor leaders of the turn of the century.
On Friday, July 18 at 7:30 p.m. the Hoboken Historical Museum will be presenting The March of the Mill Children: A Lecture by Mother Jones commemorating the 100th anniversary of the children’s march led by labor activist Jones to draw attention to child labor.
On May 29, 1903, led by Jones, 100,000 workers including 16,000 children left their jobs at 600 mills in the Philadelphia area. Then, on July 7, 1903 Jones led a march that began in Philadelphia, went through Hoboken and New York, and ended 125 miles away at the door of President Theodore Roosevelt’s home in Oyster Bay, Long Island.
Along the way, Jones held meetings, told of the horrors of child labor, and showed the crowds the children who had lost their childhood.
"Every day little children came into Union Headquarters, some with their hands off, some with the thumb missing, some with their fingers off at the knuckle," said Jones in her autobiography. "They were stooped little things, round-shouldered and skinny."
Jones described the atmosphere of the children marching through Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.
"The children carried knapsacks on their backs in which was a knife and fork, a tin cup and plate," she wrote. "One little fellow had a drum and another had a fife. We carried banners that said: ‘We want time to play’."
They marched through New Jersey stopping in Trenton, and Princeton, and from Jersey City they marched to Hoboken, where they waited after having been refused permission to enter New York City.
Beginning in the 1870s and continuing for over 50 years, Mother Jones went to coal mines, train yards, factories and logging camps to meet with workers and help them fight against conditions that amounted to slavery.
By the turn of the century, almost two million children under the age of 16 worked in mills, factories and mines. Images of the child workers Mother Jones had seen stayed with her – particularly the torn, bleeding fingers of the "breaker boys" and the sight of the mill children living on coffee and stale bread.
At the historical museum event, Chicago actress Betsey Means of WomanLore, a performance group that offers one-woman performances adapted directly from journals, autobiographies, and personal writings, will be performing a 55-minute dramatic recreation of a speech given by Mother Jones during the fateful march in the summer of 1903.
Means is a professional actress who has performed with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Shakespeare on the Green, Blue Rider Theatre, and Chicago Children’s Theatre, among other groups.
She said Thursday that the Jones’ trials teach a valuable lesson that is still valid today.
"She believed that the individual has to take full responsibility for the reality that they see," she said. "If you see something that is wrong with that reality you have to do something to fix it, and that is exactly what she did."
She added that Jones was a compassionate woman who through a life filled with great tragedy and sorrow always strived to better the world in which she lived.
The Hoboken Historical Museum was founded in 1986 as a community-based non-profit organization to stimulate all aspects of Hoboken’s history, architecture, and cultural heritage. The museum is open Tuesday through Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $2; children and museum members receive free admission.
The event is made possible through funding from the County of Hudson, Thomas A. DeGise, County Executive, the Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders, the Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The performance by historical dramatist Betsy Means of WomanLore will be held at the Hoboken Historical Museum, 1301 Hudson St. Seating is limited. Reservations may be made by calling (201) 656-2240. Admission is free.