Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms, especially to you Mother Jones. This song by the Bristol Borough-born Celtic folk group The River Drivers chronicles the efforts of Mother Jones (Mary G. Harris Jones), an Irish-American labor organizer, to force the government to enforce child labor laws in Pennsylvania mines and mills. In 1903, she led a group of factory children from Kensington in Philadelphia to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in New York, a trip that took three weeks. The song won was first place winner for lyrics in the International Women’s Freedom Song competition. The River Drivers are made up of Kevin McCloskey (vocals, guitar, mandolin, banjo, bass); Mindy Murray (vocals, guitar, banjo, bass); Marian Moran (tin whistle, low whistle, concertina, melodica) and Mindy Murray’s daughter, Meagan Ratini (fiddle, Irish flute, tin whistle). You can download their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Apple, and Amazon. Learn more about the band here.
