Mary Thomas O'Neal

Company Government National Guard Events Locations Commemorations Mary Hannah Williams Thomas O'Neal (1887 – after 1974) was a Welsh-born American labor activist who wrote the only eyewitness memoir of the Ludlow Massacre, part of the Colorado Coalfield War.

[2] At Ludlow, Colorado, Mary Thomas was soon involved with ongoing United Mine Workers of America efforts to organize the miners, including her singing to the strikers.

[5] Thomas later said she had led the camp's women and children to safety at a nearby ranch when the militia attacked their tent city in April 1914, and arranged for them to be housed and fed.

[1] After her release from jail, the union sent her and her young daughters to Washington D. C. to speak on her experiences, to raise awareness and cultivate allies for the miners' cause while a congressional committee investigated the violence during the strike.

She traveled with a party including Judge Ben B. Lindsey,[7] stayed at Hull House as a guest of Jane Addams,[8] and met with President Woodrow Wilson and other officials to discuss conditions at Ludlow.