Revealing the truth about self-made lies

Mother Jones, the great American union activist and early 20th century champion of the working class, would have you believe that she was a born activist, rebellious since her childhood in Cork, Ireland. Elliott Gorn, a professor of History at Purdue University who has written a biography on Mother Jones entitled Looking for Mother Jones, would have you believe differently. Gorn spoke about Mother Jones Friday in the first talk in the "Writer's Talk Research" series, sponsored by the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships and Harrison College House. Gorn, whose book will be published in February by Hill and Wang Inc., explained his research into the life of Mother Jones, as well as Mary Jones, the woman behind the image. The talk took place in front of an audience of about 15 people at the Arch Center on campus. Gorn explained that the only published biography on Mother Jones, her 1925 autobiography, is littered with false accounts of Jones' history. Gorn contends that to Mother Jones, who gained fame by organizing the 1914 Colorado Coal Miner's strike, as well as many other worker's movements across the country, "the person doesn't matter, the persona matters. As a biographer, I have to talk about the person as well as the persona." Some of Gorn's examples of Jones' lies are that in her autobiography, Jones claimed that she was born in 1830 and that her family, leaders of the revolution, immigrated to Canada in 1837. Gorn explained that his research entailed visiting the Irish National Archives in Dublin, as well as archives in Toronto and Ontario to deduce that Jones was really born in 1837 and most likely left Ireland during the potato famine in 1847, not 10 years earlier as she claimed. Gorn also searched Dublin records and found that Jones' accounts of her father's arrest as a rebel in Ireland are not substantiated. Gorn said he first became interested in writing about Mother Jones in 1987, when he saw many of her speeches being published, but could find no biographies about her other than her own. This is Gorn's first biography. When discussing his approach to the research, Gorn said that while you "must have ideas that give you a sense of where to go," you also "have to be open-minded." Gorn added as an example the fact that he wanted to like Mother Jones "unequivocally," but soon into his research he realized that was not possible. "Did I want to write an biography Mother Jones would approve of? No, she wouldn't approve of anything," he said. Art Casciato, director of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships and former house dean of Harrison College House, said the goal of the Writer's Talk series is to "have a more or less constant flow of students, faculty and non-academic people come to the center to speak about how they do the research, why they do the research and what the joys of doing the research are." Although the turnout was low, the talk was well-received. College junior Yaran Noti said, "I thought it was good. It was helpful to hear a professor talk about the methods of research. It helped me understand how to approach my research better."