This column tells the stories of the people whose faces appear on “A Colorado Panorama: A People’s History,” a two-block-long tile mural on the southeast side of the Colorado Convention Center. Inspired by Howard Zinn’s groundbreaking book, “A People’s History of the United States,” the mural was created by artist Barbara Jo Revelle in 1989 to celebrate those who rarely make it into the history books, but who have nonetheless had a profound impact on the history of our state. This week we’re featuring profiles of Mary “Mother” Jones and Chief Little Bear.
Mary “Mother” Jones ‒ Labor Activist (1830-1930)
Born Mary Harris in County Cork, Ireland, this pioneer was nicknamed “Mother Jones” by members of the American Railway Union after she gave a fiery speech in support of its leader, Eugene Debs. Harris was married to a Memphis iron worker and unionist named George Jones with whom she had four children. After her family was wiped out in the yellow fever epidemic of 1867, she moved to Chicago and became a dressmaker for wealthy society women. She couldn’t help but notice, however, the disparity in wealth between her clients and those who labored for a living. She began traveling around the country giving speeches in support of any group attempting to organize a union. When National Guardsmen attacked striking miners in Ludlow, killing twenty men, women and children, Jones testified in front of Congress about the massacre. She died at age 100, and was buried in the Miners’ Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois.
Chief Little Bear – Sand Creek Survivor (ca. 1841-1917)
On the morning of Nov. 29, 1864, Col. John M. Chivington and a band of volunteer cavalry attacked the Sand Creek Indian encampment near Eads, killing some 230 men, women and children. In 1906, Little Bear gave a detailed account of the massacre to George Bent, who sent a transcript to historian George Hyde. “While I was putting on my war bonnet and shield,” he remembered, “bullets were hitting the lodges like hard storm. The feathers of my war bonnet were shot away and my shield was shot several times, but I did not get hit…I seen lots of women and children that had been killed…After the fight was over, I seen two or three soldiers together standing over the dead, I suppose scalping them.” Little Bear’s only surviving son, White Face Bull, died in 1948.
Week One: Barney L. Ford and Agnes Smedley
Week Two: Benjamin Barr Lindsey and Anne Bassett
Week Three: William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and Clara Brown
Week Four: William “Big Bill” Haywood and Anne Evans
Week Five: Buckskin Charley and “Babe” Didrikson-Zaharias
Week Six: Antonia Brico and Chief Black Kettle
Week Seven: Casimiro Barela and Daisy Anderson
Week Eight: Chogyam Trungpa and Ellen Elliot Jack
Week Nine: Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone and Chin Lin Sou
Week Ten: Emily Griffith and Dalton Trumbo
Week Eleven: Chipeta and Wallace Werner
Week Twelve: Eve Drewelowe and Davis Waite
Week Thirteen: Dr. Carl J. Johnson and Florence Sabin
Week Fourteen: Damon Runyon and Emma Langdon
Week Fifteen: Ellison Onizuka and Golda Meir
Week Sixteen: John Lewis Dyer and Helen Hunt Jackson
Week Seventeen: Edward Berthoud and Frances Wisebart Jacobs
Week Eighteen: Hattie McDaniel and Enos Mills
Week Nineteen: Isabella Bird and Francis Schlatter
Week Twenty: Laura Gilpin and Henry O. Wagoner
Week Twenty-One: Justina Ford and George Norlin
Week Twenty-Two: George Bent and Julia Archibald Holmes
Week Twenty-Three: Herbert Bayer and Mabel Barbee Lee
Week Twenty-Four: Martha Maxwell and Chief Ignacio
Week Twenty-Five: Isom Dart and Marvel Crosson
Week Twenty-Six: Jack Dempsey and Mary Long
Week Twenty-Seven: Mary Lathrop and James Beckwourth
Week Twenty-Eight: John Otto and Mina Loy
Week Twenty-Nine: Mary Rippon and Joseph Henry Stuart
Week Thirty: Lauren Watson and Molly Brown