Raised Catholic, Jane Briggs attended the Academies of the Sacred Heart in Detroit, Grosse Pointe and Torresdale, and the Manhattanville College in New York.

[2] In 1958, Philip Hart was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate from Michigan; he was repeatedly re-elected, serving until 1976.

In 1972, she announced her intention to stop paying federal income taxes, saying, "I cannot contribute one more dollar toward the purchase of more bombs and bullets".

[6] Hart was also an avid sailor and sailed 15 times in the Port Huron to Mackinac Boat Race as part of an all-women crew.

[7][8] After her husband's death, Hart donated several boxes of scrapbooks, photographs and newspaper clippings of her life as a senator's wife and aviator to the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library.