I met Jane LaTour in 1975 in the Labor Studies M.A. program at Rutgers, and we were both in the introductory course taught by Miles Galvin, a wonderful teacher who became a good friend to both of us. One of the texts for this class was Autocracy and Insurgency in American Labor (1972), edited by Burton Hall, a union democracy lawyer who had represented some of the authors in his book. Though I never asked Jane directly about this, I think now that this remarkable anthology was the beginning of her long involvement with union democracy, which included interviewing numerous union insurgents, collecting their papers for the Wagner Labor Archives, writing for and editing Hard Hat News, serving as an AUD staffer, and finally, in her last years, writing a book about union democrats that will surely be a fitting successor and companion to Burt Hall’s half-century-old anthology.
Along the way, Jane published another wonderful book based on oral history interviews, Sisters in the Brotherhoods, and many, many articles in publications ranging from the academic journal Working USA to the feisty left-wing Indypendent newspaper. She oversaw the creation of an incredibly detailed New York labor history map for the New York Labor History Association, whose newsletter Work History News she edited for years. She was a devoted friend who remembered birthdays and encouraged all her friends in their projects and dreams, and was always, always interested in hearing about the daily lives of workers of all trades and callings.