The great labor historian David Montgomery died today. He was a generous man and an outstanding
scholar. He was on my PhD committee, something of which I have always been proud. When my late friend,
Bruce Williams, and I were writing a short history of labor in the Johnstown area, we went to see David, who was then teaching at the University of Pittsburgh. From memory, he provided us with dozens of sources.
He knew every name, from John Brophy to Carlo Tresca, every newspaper, every town, every strike, well, everything. There is a brief obituary by Jon Wiener at http://www.thenation.com/blog/164954/david-montgomery-1927-2011 From this you will get a sense of what a man he was. He was what a professor and a radical comrade should be. He never faltered in his radicalism, and he always practiced what he preached. If you haven't, read his books. They are models of labor history.