Mother Jones Monument - GuidepostUSA

Mother Jones Monument

Mother Jones Monument

Mother Jones monument in the Union Miners cemetery, honors the crusader for coal miners rights. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

North Lake Street
Mount Olive, IL 62069

Phone:

(217) 999-4261

In 1903 Jones organized children working in mills and mines in the "Children's Crusade", a march from Kensington, Pennsylvania to Oyster Bay, New York, the home of President Theodore Roosevelt with banners demanding "We want time to play!" and "We want to go to school!" Though the President refused to meet with the marchers, the incident brought the issue of child labor to the forefront of the public agenda. She became known as "the most dangerous woman in America", a phrase coined by a West Virginia District Attorney named Reese Blizzard in 1902, when she was arrested for ignoring an injunction banning meetings by striking miners. "There sits the most dangerous woman in America", announced Blizzard. "She crooks her finger—twenty thousand contented men lay down."

Later years
In 1913, during the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike in West Virginia, Mother Jones was charged and kept under house arrest in the nearby town of Pratt and subsequently convicted with other union organizers of conspiring to commit murder, after organizing another children's march. Her arrest raised an uproar and she was soon released when the attackers were identified as associates of a prominent local business person. After her release, the United States Senate ordered an investigation into the conditions in the local coal mines.
-wikipedia

Location

Location Description:

Union Miners Cemetery

Directions:

I-55/exit 44 to Hwy. 138; go east into Mt. Olive to first stop sign; go north (old Rt.66). Go 6 blocks around the curve to N. Lake St. / Go left to the union miners cemetery. Look for signs.

Geocode:

39.079950 latitude, -89.731714 longitude

What's Nearby

Nearby points of interest:

Old Soulsby Shell Station, Route 66

Tourism Links

Illinois Tourism