Agnes did not actively seek the office of president. According to her son, she was in poor health, but she sensed the spirit of the women: "A spirit she had longed for. If she could help she had to help. . . . There were personal reasons as well. She shared their anger and feelings of desperation. Her husband, Ed Wieck, a miner with more than twenty years' experience and still a union member, hadn't had a job in the mine for five years or any job for two. A Progressive Miners' victory wouldn't put him back to work but a militant union, especially if it should become part of a new and militant labor movement, would fight for the unemployed. . . . It was not only for husband, child, and kinfolk, however, that she was ready to fight. For a long time she had had a dream of an 'army of women.' Now, in spontaneous answer to brutal realities, such an 'army' had come to be."
In 1985 Agnes Burnes Wieck was inducted in the Illinois Labor History Society's "hall of honor." The plaque characterizes her this way: "Eloquent, tireless, courageous and inspired, educator and rebel organizer of her people in Labor's Cause, the 'Mother Jones' of Illinois."
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