Before labor laws and protections, businesses hired children to work in factories, and people were often unfairly compensated and overworked. But the woman known as Mother Jones tried to change all of that. Beginning in her 50s, she fought for the rights of workers to organize and for employment rights, which her efforts would eventually lead to child labor laws, the establishment of a 40-hour work week, and the right to collectively bargain.
In celebration of Women’s History Month, Murray State University Cinema International is screening “Fight Like Hell: The Testimony of Mother Jones,” a one-take film where the historical figure directly addresses the camera.
MSU Cinema International co-director Ben Post said this particular film was a good fit for what the organization sought to showcase this semester with the theme of ‘International America.’
“Mother Jones is an Irish immigrant. She's all over America, as you see in the film, doing all kinds of things, including in our region,,” he said. “It’s a movie adaptation of a one-woman show where the woman who wrote it and plays Mother Jones in the film stitched together all these bits of different speeches and writings from her into this kind of coherent monologue, which is filmed to give you a sense of immersion in this time period.”
One of Mother Jones’ best known quotes is “pray for the dead, but fight like hell for the living.” MSU professor of history Olga Koulisis said the statement is indicative of the upbringing Jones had and the prominence of the social gospel concept at the time.
“I think a lot of it speaks to her own Catholic background and her notion that the Irish American worker should, yes, pay due to the religious elements, but also be involved in what life is like here on Earth,” said Koulisis. “This is a big part of the social gospel of the late 19th century, that Christianity is not just about your soul in the afterlife, but how you can, in essence, make a better society for people here on Earth.”
It was during the backdrop of the collision between the Gilded Age and the rise of progressivism that Mother Jones was working. Koulisis said it was a time when neither business, nor government supported the rights of workers to organize themselves, even going so far as to hire mercenaries to enforce order at factories.
“This is a very violent era of labor protest. It really is life threatening to go out there and to stand up for your rights,” Koulisis said.
She said that while some states would make reforms in response to conflicts involving labor activists and private police forces hired to stop workers from joining unions, the federal government would not support labor rights until the 1930s under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the passage of the Wagner Act. But she said that labor history has a ripple effect, where lots of different groups organizing independently led to significant changes, and that Mother Jones’ legacy can point to concrete change.
Post said that he hopes audiences will leave the screening with a new appreciation for Mother Jones’ life, but noted how unique the film will be to the viewer.
“I think these are like 1000 different points you have to stitch together into a narrative. That's what the actress did when she created this script, this 55-minute monologue,” he said. “ I find it really interesting the fact that she chose to make this movie with an image of Mother Jones alone in a cabin in the woods, maybe West Virginia, maybe somewhere like that… We're not seeing her with a bunch of activists having debates with them, right? She's giving a monologue, but not to enormous crowds, just like right to the camera, right to me.”
MSU Cinema International will be screening “Fight Like Hell: The Testimony of Mother Jones,” Thursday, March 5th and Saturday, March 7th at 7:00 p.m. in Faculty Hall room 208 on the main campus of Murray State University. It is free and open to the public.
