I knew Neil through labor history, especially Wisconsin labor history, which is my passion.  I have been active for a long time with the Wisconsin Labor History Society, first as its treasurer, then as an at-large board member.  I work as a reference librarian at the Memorial Library, the main humanities & social science research library on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and that is where I met Neil many years ago, because he would be there almost everyday, too, using our research resources.

     Neil lived in the same neighborhood where I live and we would always chat when we saw each other on the city bus going to & from the library; we also shared lunch many times at the Mediterranean Cafe, a wonderful ethnic restaurant only half a block from the Memorial Library--in fact, I had lunch with him at the Med Cafe just a little over a week before he was gone.

     Whenever I would see Neil, I knew I he would be interested to hear about the new item I had found, an article or a book I had located to add to my special project for the labor history society, the _Wisconsin Labor History Bibliography_, an annotated bibliography which is part of our society's website.  Neil seemed to always know the author of the item and often he had personally spoken with the key labor organizer or other principals of the particular labor strike discussed in the new article or book I had found.  Neil was very generous about sharing his insights with me about the labor movement and politics and I continue to think of him often.

     While Neil had published his research about Kate Richards O'Hare of Ohio in the Spring 1980 issue of the academic journal _Labor History_ ( "Kate Richards O'Hare: The 'First Lady' of American Socialism, 1901–1917," v. 21, no. 2, p. 165–199), he left a considerable collection of research papers primarily related to two other midwestern Socialist activists, Annie Diggs (who was active in Kansas) & Ida Callery (who was active in Arkansas).  With the permission of Neil's sister, Dana, I worked with another of Neil's good friends, Martin Schwartz, to arrange a home for these research papers of Neil's in the archives of the Kansas Historical Society; their "Neil K. Basen Collection" has the "Unit ID" number of 309868--you can see the description of the collection at URL:  http://www.kshs.org/archives/309868.
  

This is Bill Bolinger and I worked at the General Motors Assembly plant from 1962-2006, 44 years and went through UMKC in history and economics. I have been a socialist since around 1970 and was in the Socialist Workers Party from 1976-85.I was in Topeka at the Ks Historical Society signed in as doing "Labor History" research in about 1995?? when Neil came in and saw it and he looked around and found me my a book I had with me. The plant was shut down for about a month and I was driving about 120 miles daily from my home in K.C., Mo. Neil had arranged to rent a colllege dorm room in about a week at Washburn University and he stayed in my guest bedroom for a few days and then we shared the dorm room for a couple of weeks so I would not have to drive back and forth every day, I was four years older than Neil and we had I lot in common. I had several thousand  3 x 5 cards with research on many subjects including socialists and socialism.I am a labor and civil rights specialist. Neil told about Kate Richards O'Hare and how she organized a union among workers in her father's shop and he fired her! I later called and talked to Neil two or three times after our Topeka meeting. I was again looking Neil up when I found out Neil had died. Yours For the Revolution as some socialist use to sign their letters. thk4yurself@yahoo.com

I first came to know Neil as the historian and biographer of Kate Richards O'Hare, the radical inspiration to so many of us.  Neil had been to every archive, and through every manuscript collection imaginable, from coast to coast; always searching for that one further detail about O'Hare and the movement to which she belonged.  When I was out and about doing my own research, he'd always have tips and hints for me; collections I should look at, etc.  A fastidious scholar, researcher, and most important of all, a good comrade. Many an archivist and librarian I met along the way knew Neil!

My memory of him goes back over thrty-five years. I can still see him playing basketball at Orton Park here in Madison, a spunky little guard. Or, an ocassional conversation about history and politics over schooners of beer at the Six-O-Two. And, later on, his visits at Rainbow Bookstore, often stopping in to see if there was "anything new".

And then our chats about the cab world and "driving" back when he drove for Badger, and then Union. 

But again, most of all, his superb dedication as a scholar/ historian of "people's history"... Neil Basen, Presente! 

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

Neil always enjoyed driving. When he was in High School he parked cars at the beach club.  In college during breaks and the summer, he worked for UPS and delivered pizza. 

What most people don't know is Neil did not pass his road test the first time around, or the second.  Mom took him for his first two tests and Neil always said Mom made him nervous.  Dad took him the third time around and he passed the test.  Needless to say, both my sister and I had Dad take us for our road test and we both passed.