Dorothy L. Wake,
the author of this book defines Mother Jones as the most significant
and relevant political voice for the working class to ever
emerge from within the United States. Although Mary Harris
"Mother" Jones identified herself as a socialist,
her politics coincided with revolutionary syndicalism. The
duality of Socialism and Syndicalism defined her role as a
leader of labour and social reform during the late 1800s and
early 1900s, and structured her beliefs and attitudes about
women, which paralleled her general perceptions of class warfare.
Jones has been dismissed as being simply a "hell-raiser"
or reduced to a "folksy" or "colorful"
old woman who endeared herself to the miners by taking up
their cause. Most who wrote about her diminished or eliminated
her historical and political significance by failing to establish
that she changed the face of labour in the United States forever.
Some have even resorted to writing malicious and unprovable
accusations about her. Ms. Wake´s extensive research
brings to light the impact Mother Jones had on the labour
movement for nearly half a century and reveals Jones as an
intellectual and a feminist voice.
