On this date in 1911, one of the worst factory disasters in U.S. history occurred.
A rag pile ignited at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. and killed 146 people, mostly young, immigrant women.
The owners had not installed fire escapes and barred doors to control theft and keep out union organizers.
Many of the women, trapped inside the burning factory, leapt from the 10 story building to their deaths. (Info from lorraine: a young man, knowing how frightened they were, held their hands at the edge before they jumped. Once they were gone, he jumped.)
Newspaper stories and photographs seared the horror of the blaze into the minds of Americans.
Go look at the photos in the link above. They tell more than I can with words. Warning: There are a couple that are graphic.
The survivors became outspoken leaders for reform.
New York passed landmark legislation to protect workers. The owners were all convicted on manslaughter charges.
Our work places are safer today because of the efforts made by reforms in the wake of this fire.
So remember the 146 who died on this date. Remember them and what happened at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
Remember because if a similar tragedy happened today, the owners probably wouldn’t face criminal charges. They’d probably be put in charge of workplace safety at the Department of Labor.
I made the pilgrimage to the site of the fire one day. It’s on NYU campus, so all around me were students going back and forth to class. No one noticed the plaque commemorating the dead. But I swear, when I looked up at the 8th floor windows, I could see young women, their skirts flaring out around them, leaping. I wanted to ask if anyone else could see them. I knew they would think I was crazy. But that workplace disaster is one we must never, ever forget. Thank you for posting this.
I saw on one of the web sites that the building is owned by NYU and used for classes. Do you know what classes are taught there?
I found this. It’s the Brown Building
NYU
were labor organizers who had bravely challenged the sweatshops in a strike the year before. It is hard to imagine the strugle of these and other labor organizers who fought for an end to child labor, the 40 hour work week, the creation of the middle class and a (near) end to slave-like labor conditions in the United States. From the work of these women came the greatest wealth for the most people in all of human history.
Interesting to is how the fire was used to advance conflicting agendas. On one hand were the reformers, who wanted to regulate “fires” – in place of regulating the means of production and the relationship of labor to capital. In the end, “fire” was regulated, progressives improved working conditions, some of labor’s demands were met – and the overall relationship of power, capital and labor remained intact.
In 1909-1910, there was the Uprising of the 20,000, the brave women who struck, many of whom were beaten by strikebreakers and jailed by unsympathetic judges.
It’s a topic near and dear to my heart since it’s a central event in the novel I’m writing.
There’s a great book, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle that I would recommend.
….My best friend
Was alone in the alcove
Does anyone see her there?
Such a sweet face
Trapped in a staircase
By the smell of her own burning hair ……
and the Girls work hard for
Small rewards or
Invitations to dine.
Or one kind word from
One who loves them but
What I have earned is mine
The terrible flames of
All that remain……
partial lyrics from My Little Shirtwaist Fire by the wonderful Rasputina-from Thanks for the Ether.
After reading your post I had to give it a new listen. Thanks.
Thanks for posting that. I didn’t know the song.
No problem-I love Rasputina so any excuse to bring them more notice is welcomed!
Thanks Carnaki for this diary. Especially timely as it is IWM..Another piece of history I didn’t know anything about till my 20’s.(I think I first read about it my MS magazines) Nor how very much the labor movement owed to women and Mother Jones.
I sadly think you’re right about how this tragedy would go down today for big business. Worker’s rights have been so degraded especially since bush took office that’s it’s hard to imagine any justice being done at all if this happened today.
I was married in the Jefferson County Court House where the trials from the miners’ rebellion –organized by Mother Jones — were held. Link here to another part of history that often goes untaught in our schools.
Thanks for that link. That’s an amazing history lesson, just one of the many that never get told in our history books.
And of course pissed me off again at the depth that big business(and the government) goes to to keep working people down which continues to this day.
I remember watching a film about this fire in my 8th grade class(abt 14 years old for those not familiar with the American school system). We were also required to read “The Jungle”. I wonder if children today are taught in their history classes why it is important that we have labor laws. The film on the Triangle Waistshirt Factory had a huge impact on me.
Robert Pinsky wrote a poem about the fire. In it, he refers to the story, reported by witnesses, of the young man who helped some of the terrified women who were too afraid to jump from the 9th story windows. They were about to be burned to death, and this young man helped them to hurl themselves from the window. For an outstanding account of the Triangle fire, read David Von Drehle’s book, Triangle.
Shirt
Robert Pinsky
The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar
Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians
Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break
Or talking money or politics while one fitted
This armpiece with its overseam to the band
Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,
The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,
The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze
At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.
One hundred and forty-six died in the flames
On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes–
The witness in a building across the street
Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step
Up to the windowsill, then held her out
Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.
And then another. As if he were helping them up
To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.
A third before he dropped her put her arms
Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held
Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once
He stepped to the sill himself, his jacket flared
And fluttered up from his shirt as he came down,
Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers–
Like Hart Crane’s Bedlamite, “shrill shirt ballooning.”
Wonderful how the pattern matches perfectly
Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked
Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme
Or a major chord. Prints, plaids, checks,
Houndstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans
Invented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of Ossian,
To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed
By a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,
Bailey, MacMartin. The kilt, devised for workers
To wear among the dusty clattering looms.
Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,
The docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the sorter
Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton
As slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:
George Herbert, your descendant is a Black
Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma
And she inspected my shirt. Its color and fit
And feel and its clean smell have satisfied
Both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality
Down to the buttons of simulated bone,
The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters
Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,
The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.
From The Want Bone, published by The Ecco Press. Copyright © 1990 by Robert Pinsky. Reprinted by permission of The Ecco Press. All rights reserved. Used with permission.