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==Biography==
Jackson was one of fifteen children born in [[Clay County, Kentucky]], as the daughter of Oliver Perry Garland and Deborah Robinson.<ref name=k459>Kleber 1992, p. 459.</ref><ref Inname=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Yurchenco |first=Henrietta |date=1991 |title=Trouble in the Mines: A History in Song and Story by Women of Appalachia |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051817 |journal=American Music |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=209–224 |doi=10.2307/3051817 |issn=0734-4392}}</ref> Prior to 1883, her father openedworked as a storesharecropper. However, due to the extensive subdivision of land in southeastern Kentucky over the course of the latter half of the nineteenth century, her father's profession grew to be inviable. The family moved to [[East Bernstadt, Kentucky]] in [[Laurel County, Kentucky|Laurel County]] where Oliver opened a general store selling groceries to miners on credit and became a pastor at the Missionary Baptist Church in town.<ref name=":0" /> When the miners failed to make their payments, he was forced to close itthe store two years later to go to work in the coal mines. Her mother died of tuberculosis when she was six years old.<ref name=h66>Hevener 2002, p. 66.</ref> BecauseHer herfather familylater werebecame involved ina union activitiesorganizer, which Jackson washas thrownsaid, inparticularly jailafter her father's death, strongly influenced her work as an activist during her adulthood. After purposefully scaring a neighbor by applying [[blackface]], Jackson was jailed at the age of ten.<ref name=k459":0" /> She began learning songs from her great-grandmother, Nancy MacMahan, at an early age.
In 1894, she married the miner Jim Stewart. She bore two children.<ref name=k459/><ref name=h66/> For the next decade, she worked as a nurse in Clay County before moving to Harlan County in 1908 and a job as a midwife delivering 884 babies.<ref name=h66/> Her husband was killed in a mine accident in 1917 and shortly afterwards, she married the miner Bill Jackson.<ref name=k459/> Tragedies struck her family when her father and a brother were blinded in another mine accident.<ref name=h66/> She became a member of the [[United Mine Workers]] and began writing protest songs likesuch as "''I Am A Union Woman''", "''Kentucky Miner's Wife''", and "''Poor Miner's Farewell''".<ref name=k459/> When Jackson was jailed because of her unionizing activities, her husband was forced to divorce her in order to keep his mining job.<ref name=h67>Hevener 2002, p. 67.</ref>
She was discovered in November 1931 by the Dreiser Committee, investigating the [[Harlan County War]] and workers' living conditions when she spoke and sang her song "''Ragged, Hungry Blues''" in front of the committee.<ref name=h66/><ref name=w42>Weissman 2006, p. 42.</ref> In December 1931, Jackson traveled to [[New York City]] to support and raise money for striking Harlan coal miners,<ref name=r2>Romalis 1998, p. 2.</ref> at one point appearing before an estimated crowd of 21,000 at the [[Bronx Coliseum]].<ref>The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History, by Aaron Brenner, Benjamin Day, and Immanuel Ness, page 111</ref> Jackson made her recording debut on December 10, 1931.<ref name=ru452>Russell 2004, p. 452.</ref> For the next year, she performed in various cities in the north.<ref name=r2/> She stayed in New York for much of that decade and was a part of the Greenwich Village folk revival, singing for [[Alan Lomax]] at the Library of Congress, and influencing folk singers from [[Woody Guthrie]] to [[Pete Seeger]].
In the mid-1930s, she performed in New York City together with [[Woody Guthrie]], [[Pete Seeger]], [[Earl Robinson]], [[Will Geer]], her half-brother [[Jim Garland]], and her half-sister [[Sarah Ogan Gunning]].<ref name=k459/><ref name=h67/> After a bus accident in [[Ohio]], leaving her badly crippled, Jackson became incapacitated and was confined to her New York apartment.<ref name=h67/><ref name=r2/> She died in 1960 and was interred as Mary Stamos, next to her husband Gust Stamos, at the Odd Fellows Lawn Cemetery in [[Sacramento, California]].<ref name=r2/>
The given dates of Aunt Molly Jackson's life are mostly uncertain since she was very flexibleinconsistent when giving them. Folklorist [[Archie Green]] became very frustrated during interviews with her, due to her "elastic responses", inconsistent elaborations and "flexible dates." It was not unusual for her to contradict her own prior accounts.<ref name=r4>Romalis 1998, p. 4.</ref>
==Discography==
* Kentucky Miner's Wife, Part 1-2 (Ragged Hungry Blues) - Columbia 15731-D (1931)
* The Little Dove / Ten Thousand Miles - Library of Congress AAFS-7 (1942)
* ''The Songs and Stories of Aunt Molly Jackson'', 1960 - Folkways FH-5457 (1961)
* Aunt Molly Jackson, Library of Congress Recordings, 1939 - Rounder 1002 (1971)
*[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA05/luckey/amj/amjmain.htm Kentucky Diva: Aunt Molly Jackson] from American Studies at the University of Virginia
*[{{Allmusic|class=artist|id=p28029|pure_url=yes}} Allmusic]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060905060916/http://www.press.uillinois.edu/f98/romalis.html Pistol Packin' Mama - Shelly Romalis]
*[http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=1022/ Recordings of Aunt Molly Jackson on Folkways Records]
{{Authority control}}
{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
| NAME = Jackson, Aunt Molly
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION = American musician
| DATE OF BIRTH = 1880
| PLACE OF BIRTH =
| DATE OF DEATH = September 1, 1960
| PLACE OF DEATH =
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Aunt Molly}}
[[Category:1880 births]]
[[Category:1960 deaths]]
[[Category:American folk musicians]]
[[Category:United Mine Workers of America people]]
[[Category:20th-century American folk musicians]]
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