Jane McFarland, age 14, of Patterson, N.J., for his question:

WHO WAS 'MOTHER JONES?'

A well known figure in the United States labor movement during the late 1800s and early 1900s was a woman named Mary Harris Jones. She helped organize local labor unions, largely among coal miners. Most workers called her "Mother Jones."

Jones convinced many laborers to strike for better working conditions, higher wages and shorter hours.

Jones was jailed in vest Virginia in 1902 and 1913 and in Colorado in 1913 and 1914, for leading miners strikes. The jailing of a fearless woman who was more than 70 years old aroused sympathy for the labor movement, but most of the strikes were unsuccessful.

Mother Jones sympathy for workers resulted partly from tragedy in her own life. In 1867, her husband and their four children died of yellow fever in Memphis. She moved to Chicago and opened a dressmaking shop, but the great Chicago fire of 1871 destroyed her home and her business.

Mother Jones was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1830 and died at the age of 100 in 1930.