Larger Than Life: Remembering David

Extract

David Montgomery was larger than life in his personal style and self-presentation as well as in his spirit. Both watching and listening to him in conversation were a treat. So absorbed would he become in explaining some little-known incident of labor militancy that his entire body would get involved, his hand gestures and physical movements growing broader, requiring his listener to stand back to get a fuller view. His intense interest in labor history and patient willingness to share his knowledge with younger scholars testified to his faith in labor far more effectively than any manifesto. He communicated a sense of labor history as a shared enterprise in which we were all fellow workers.