In 2000, a new elementary school opened in the community dedicated to labor organizer Mary Harris "Mother" Jones.
Cottondale was the site of cotton mills where the Knights of Labor had some success in organizing drives in the late 1880s; and where "Mother" Jones worked in 1904 while studying conditions for working women and children in the South.
Mary Harris Jones (called "Mother Jones", 1837–1930), American labor and community organizer
Tom Jones | Tom Jones (singer) | Queen Mary | Mary | Emmylou Harris | Quincy Jones | Mary, Queen of Scots | Mary I of England | Indiana Jones | Norah Jones | Mary J. Blige | Mary Shelley | Mary Poppins | Mary Pickford | James Earl Jones | Mary of Teck | George Jones | Rolf Harris | Mike Harris | Chuck Jones | John Paul Jones | RMS Queen Mary | Grace Jones | Mary Magdalene | Mary Robinson | Terry Jones | Mary Landrieu | Edward Burne-Jones | Inigo Jones | Assumption of Mary |
At first a mixture of articles and extracts from works by well-known socialists and radicals, Appeal to Reason began to publish writings by many of the prominent young socialists and reformers of the era, including Jack London, "Mother" Jones, Upton Sinclair and Eugene Debs.