Compare And Contrast The Triangle Factory Fire And Work Safety

Life in the early 1900’s wasn’t easy. Competition for jobs was at an all time high, especially in New York City. Immigrants were flooding in and needed to find work fast, even if that meant in the hot, overcrowded conditions of garment factories. Conditions were horrid and disaster was inevitable, and disaster did strike in March, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York set on fire, killing 146 workers. This is an important event in US history because it helped accomplish the tasks unions and strikes had tried to accomplish years earlier, It improved working conditions in factories nationwide and set new safety laws and regulations so that nothing as catastrophic would happen again. The workplace struggles became public after

One such occurrence that showed the hazardous work conditions that they were put through was at the Triangle Waist Company. Workers were leaving a days work when a fire broke out, and they found themselves trapped inside with windows and fire escapes rusted shut. As the fire spread some began to jump from the nine-story building. By the time it was over, 146 workers had dies, most of them young Jewish women (Binder 84).

After reading the novel Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix and watching the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 1911 documentary it became apparent that there were several similarities between the two, however, there are also many differences. Haddix wrote Uprising from the perspective of three young girls over the period of a few years leading up to the fire; while the documentary simply covered the indecent of the fire and used first hand accounts of civilians that were around the building during the event. Although Uprising and the documentary on the fire may tell it a little differently, both tell the history of one of the worst disasters in New York’s history.

Throughout history, women have faced with a plethora of challenges that called for them to transcend society’s limitations. One of these situations was the challenges presented by the terrible living and factory conditions in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire took the lives of 146 immigrant women and devastated New York; and due to the theft-preventative measures of locking the doors to the factory, owner, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck led to even more lives being lost. This situation, although terrible, was not that uncommon. As these immigrant women arrived in the United States, there would be a typical and similar experience among many; one that started with the problems offered upon arrival,

Thesis = Even though the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was a horrible event and killed a lot of people, it helped the United States improve their factory working conditions and helped strengthen the woman's work unions.

March 25th, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory burned leaving 145 workers dead. Negated safety rules and regulations and the overall working conditions in the factory where illegal manual workers were paid close to nothing for working very long hours, were a known concern that was just looked over by the business managers in this “Sweatshop.” Fires, leading up to this tragedy, were looked passed on the count of government officials and business managers’ corrupt ways of running things. The owners of the factory, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris were known for causing fires in factories they have previously owned such as two Diamond Waist Company factory fires in 1907 and 1910, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s fire in 1902. They were doing so to collect insurance money and everyone looked the other way.

On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company which sparked the beginning of The Progressive Era in United States politics. However, there were events before the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and after the fire that showcased Progressivism in action. The formation of labor unions and women seeking a change in their lifestyles defined the beginning of a Progressive movement while reforms in worker’s rights and protections and women’s suffrage highlighted the outcome of the tragedy.

Nowadays, it is almost impossible to find a building that does not have exit signs or fire extinguishers in America. Whether in a university or at the work place, exit signs and fire safety instructions can easily be found by anybody. Fire drills are regularly practiced to ensure the least amount of casualty will occur if something goes wrong. However, a hundred years ago safety issues were barely taken into considerations and safety regulations were most of the time inexistent, as illustrates the terrible fire that happened a hundred years ago at the Triangle

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire not only affected the city of New York, but also the rest of the country. It forever changed the way our country would look at safety regulations in factories and buildings. The fire proved to America what can and will happen if we over-look safety regulations and over-crowd buildings. Unfortunately, 146 lives are taken before we fully understand this concept.

For example, workers of any age were permitted, as long as they worked (Staff, par. 2). Before leaving the building, workers had to pass through the only backdoor, which was down a narrow passageway, which was supposed to prevent robberies (Staff, par. 2). There were also many safety hazards that the owners slyly kept away from the eyes of the City Council members. There were only two slim fire escapes while there should have been three wide ones, and there were only a couple buckets of water given to throw at the event of a fire(Leap for Life, Leap of Death, par. 6). At the time of the fire, the fire department realized that there was a lot more that the owners could have done to prevent this accident. As an after effect of the fire, many rules were put into place in New York to prevent fires from happening in similar circumstances. A major law that was put into place is the Occupational Safety and Health act or OSHA (Korasick, par. 1). This law states that employees working in factories should not be exposed to anything harmful, should not have terrible working conditions, and that workplaces of factory employees need to be sanitary (Epa, 1). If the fire had not occurred, factories would still, under many circumstances, be

     Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, in New York City a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. One of the worst tragedies in American history it was know as the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. It was a disaster that took the lives of 146 young immigrant workers. A fire that broke out in a cramped sweatshop that trapped many inside and killed 146 people.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a vast amount of recent immigrant workers were faced with a horrendous situation within the working class due to the selfish acts of greed from big business corporations. The impactful results of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City during 1911 brought a devastating memory of horror, but at the same time a memory of an event that leads reforms. The Shirtwaist Factory Fire brings hope that even great tragedies such as it can provide change. The results from the fire drove socialist, trade unionists, and progressive reformers to finally get the push they needed to overcome the longstanding obstacles to reform. Reformers focused on various approaches to improving the situation

Clotilde Terranova was one of the 146 victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a fire on the top three floors of the Asch Building in Brooklyn, New York. No one knows the real cause of the fire. Most believe it started when someone tossed a burning cigarette bud into the scrap bin on the eighth floor. The building itself was fireproof, but there was so many flammable things inside the building that caused the fire to spread so rapidly. Terranova was on the tenth floor during the fire. She was the only death among the approximately seventy workers on the tenth floor.

Frances Perkins came from a wealthy family in Maine. From her mother, she inherited the propensity to be stingy with money, earnest, and brutally honest. In 1902, she attended Mount Holyoke College, where she used her glibness to barely get by. Instead of focusing on improving her strengths, Frances’ professors sought to improve her weaknesses; Especially her moral ones. This was done with the idea in mind that if she were to overcome her shortcomings, she would be able to conquer anything life threw at her. After graduation, Frances struggled to find something meaningful to do with her life; That is the tragedy of The

It took many years for the commissions and unions to get the changes implemented. Today, regardless of OSHA enforcement, there are still workplaces with locked or blocked emergency exits. Due to the lesson that was learned in the Triangle fire, we now have organizations like OSHA, NFPA, state and local municipals that make code and enforce standards. Their goal is to ensure the safety of lives and property by enforcing the codes and standards of all workplaces