In the world of labor history and labor activism Jane LaTour was a renaissance woman. She researched, she wrote, and she fought for workers’ rights and union democracy. She rescued dozens of archival collections and recorded oral histories that would surely have been lost without her efforts. But for anyone who knew Jane, the most lasting impressions of her are as a friend – her warmth, her welcoming smile, her sympathy and encouragement. To work with Jane was to become her friend; her energy was boundless, but work never got in the way of human connections.

I knew Jane best through our many years together at NYU’s Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives and as fellow Board members of the New York Labor History Association (NYLHA). At Wagner Jane and Archives Director Debra Bernhardt made an ideal team, fueled by the same dedication to preserving all aspects of labor’s rich and cantankerously complicated history. And both possessed the rare, almost magical, ability to win the trust of everyone they approached, from to leaders of mainstream unions to dissidents of all stripes. For several years Jane took on the massive job of bringing in the records of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Her many trips to the CWA’s Washington headquarters resulted in the arrival at NYU of roughly six hundred boxes of records. She went on to acquire the records of Districts 1 and 2 and of CWA locals up and down the Eastern seaboard.

But as a former director of the AUD’s Women’s Project and an editor of Hard Hat News, the voice of dissidents in the New York building trades, Jane always wanted to broaden her reach. She soon brought to Wagner the papers of Painters Union rebel Frank Schonfeld, of crusading labor lawyer Burton Hall, of Jim McNamara, a lifelong opponent of corruption and race and gender discrimination in unions, of Brenda Berkman and the First Women Firefighters, and many, many more. In recent years she delivered to Wagner the papers of her longtime friend, writer Robert Fitch, a hellfire and brimstone critic of labor – and every other kind of fakers. In the early 2000s Jane began conducting the oral history interviews with pioneering women in the blue-collar trades that became the basis of her book, “Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Working Women Organizing for Equality in New York City” (2008). The book gave Jane yet another platform, as she traveled to campuses and union halls telling the story of the tradeswomen’s victories against horrendous odds.

At the NYLHA Jane always had a project or two in the works, and the most reluctant volunteers found it impossible to say no to her intriguing proposals. On top of being chair of the Membership Committee and editor of the newsletter “Work History News” (she doubled its length), she launched a campaign to produce a labor history map of New York State. In the face of some skepticism (and with no cash reserves) she recruited volunteers to create a black and white map of New York City labor sites, as a combination test run and fundraiser. In due time she was able to recruit a top designer, and more volunteer researchers, to create a full-color, lavishly illustrated state map that still graces many a union office and labor studies classroom. When Jane was given the NYLHA’s Commerford Labor Education Award the entire membership, and her friends everywhere, cheered.

Jane built on the inspiration of her cherished mentors, from Professor Clement Price in her student days at Rutgers-Newark to Herman Benson of the AUD. And most important of all, she could count, to the very last, on the unfailing love and support of her husband, partner, and collaborator, Transport Workers militant Russell Smith. For some scholars “working people” have been a subject for study. Jane’s philosophy, in work and life, was “We’re all in this together.” As we all try to measure up, her memory will light the way.

Gail Malmgreen
Tamiment Library/Wagner Labor Archives (retired)