Illinois Labor History Society Bibliography of Women's Labor History


Most titles available through Illinois Labor History Society Book Department

Autobiography of Mother Jones

by Mary (Mother) Jones, Foreword by Meridel Le Seuer. Reprint by Chas Kerr Co. This is the lively account of the adventures of America's early 20th century labor folk heroine. Illustrated. A good place to start a collection!

Mother Jones: The Miners' Angel

by Dale Fetherling, 1972. A biographical treatment which fills gaps in her autobiography. Illustrated.

Autobiography of Florence Kelley

by Florence Kelley Kelley was one of Jane Addams' Hull House staff. Her specialty was industrial safety and child labor. Was appointed by Gov. Altgeld as the state's first factory inspector. 265pg

Battleground: The Autobiography of Margaret A. Haley

One of the nation's foemost pioneers of teacher unionism. A Chicago classroom teacher, in 1902 she became the first business representative of the Chicago Teachers' Federation. This is a story of the rough and tumble of Chicago politics and corporate intrigues with the Board of Education, which Haley battled to outmaneuver through the years. 298pg.

The Roads They Made

by Adade Wheeler and Marlene S. Wortman,"Women in Illinois History," is the subtitle of this book. The principal focus is on labor and reform activities. 213pg..

Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary

by Carolyn Ashbaugh. The biography of a black woman radical who was a leader of hunger marches in Chicago in the late 19th century. The widow of white Texan, Albert Parsons, who was executed in the Haymarket Affair of 1886. 288pg (out of print, but check your library).

The Rebel Girl

by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. The autobiography of a great labor and political orator and organizer. Covers what she called her "first life," from 1906 to 1926. Flynn joined the Socialist Party at age sixteen and became a leading figure in the Lawrence, Mass. textile strike in 1912, and Patterson, N.J. in 1913. Includes defense of the Scottsboro boys. 351pg

Woman from Spillertown

by David Thoreau Wieck. A biography of Agnes Wieck, the "Mother Jones" of the Southern Illinois coal fields, who was in the thick of events during the mine union struggles of the 1920s. 280 pg.


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