Angel from the Dust

Mary Kenney O’Sullivan was an unsung American heroine whose astounding life was a quest for female equality. Born in Hannibal Missouri in 1864, she was the youngest daughter of Irish immigrants. Following her father’s demise, she became the caretaker of her widowed mother and moved to Chicago Illinois after the infamous Haymarket Massacre. This was at the height of the industrial revolution, when American workers were little more than slaves and females were the most oppressed and exploited of all workers.

It was a time when workers’ unions were demonized and the owners of industry were lionized, while engaged in untold acts of brutality, bloodshed, mayhem and murder. It was the “Gilded Age” when American history was written with the ink of lies. In Chicago, Mary would begin to organize working women and girls into trade unions and soon gained the attention of Samuel Gompers, The President of the American Federation of Labor. He would make her the first female labor organizer in America.

She would soon become an admirer and ally of Mother Jones, Jane Addams, Eugene Debs and Clarence Darrow. She would meet her match in John O’Sullivan, a strikingly handsome man from Boston who had traveled the world as an able bodied seaman and become a labor columnist for the Boston Globe. She would marry John O’Sullivan and move to Boston where she would continue to engage in the organization of women workers, helping to form the Women’s Trade Union League.

After her husband’s untimely passing, she became the sole support of her three children and suffered through the worst of times only to be resurrected by her faith. Thereafter, she would help to organize the historic textile workers strike in the mill town of Fall River, Massachusetts and the infamous “Bread and Roses Strike” in the City of Lawrence. During the Great Depression she would become an energetic supporter of Boston’s Mayor, James Michael Curley.

After Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election as President of the United States, Mrs. Roosevelt sought her advice and counsel in helping formulate and enact legislation that fostered the equality of women, the elimination of child labor and the protection of the lives and safety of men and women in the workplace.

Mary Kenney O’Sullivan, the Angel from the Dust, was simply the best, because she was the first, a pioneer. Never has her story and the story of America during her lifetime been more timely.

Paul Kenney was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, the third son of a deceased Boston Police Officer. While enrolled at the University of Massachusetts, a love of literature and an appreciation for the spoken word caused him to question whether he should become a writer or a lawyer. The drama of the jury trial and a passion for justice drew him to the law. At Boston University Law School, he focused upon criminal law as a means of seeking equal justice under law. As a legal intern in the District Attorney's Office, he assisted in the preparation of homicide cases, thereafter honing his trial skills as a Defender of the Public in the courts of Cambridge and Boston. After a sojourn as a labor lawyer and a hard fought, historic medical malpractice victory on behalf of a dying husband and father, Paul became the president of his own law firm, concentrating on the litigation of catastrophic injury cases in the state and federal courts. Kenney & Conley, P.C. has been on the cutting edge of catastrophic injury litigation and the representation of the less fortunate for close to three decades. In addition to practicing law, for more than a decade, Paul served as the President of Caritas Communities Inc., one of the largest housing charities in New England, providing safe and affordable housing for the working poor. Paul's abiding concern for the less fortunate, stemming from his upbringing, motivated him to found Kinvara Productions with its mission to enlighten, uplift and entertain though novels, music and films.