The Triangle Factory Fire

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

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.

Fire! Fire! Fire! Only it took 18 minutes to destroy 146 lives. A normal day that soon was about to become the deadliest in one’s life, it went through the top floors in the blink of an eye. The lives lost in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire were tremendously tragic, but worth it because they changed America by bringing up many laws that will impact the wages gained and working conditions that would later prevent this from happening again.

On March twenty-fifth, in the year nineteen-hundred and eleven, over one-hundred and forty workers lost their lives in the deadliest factory fire in American history, when a fire destroyed the Asch Building which housed the Triangle Waist Company, a clothing manufacture in lower Manhattan, New York City, New York (osha.gov, 2011). The fire killed mostly young women, some of them as young as fifteen, who were paid only six-dollars a week at that time, and were expected to work over thirteen-hours a day, up to seven days a week (aflcio.org, 2017). The fire caused some major reforms and outcry for changes in, which can all closely tie in together to help save lives and help improve

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 was one of the most lethal workplace tragedies in American history. 141 young women died that day, because of their unsafe work conditions. If they had fire extinguishers and a sprinkler system, or even just a better fire escape, no one would’ve had to die. The girls did not have access to these things however, because they were not required by law.

The New York City Triangle Waist Company fire was a disastrous event that paved the road for Progressive Era reforms. A day after the fire, there was an article, “Death List Shows Few Identified,” published by the New York Times listing the identifiable and unidentifiable dead and the injured. Because of the revealed appalling working conditions and the gruesome deaths the workers came to, the reader now desires to join the Progressive movement for improved working conditions and factory safety. The historical Triangle Waist Company fire resulted in not only local factory reforms but national factory reforms as well as increased women’s rights. The “Death List Shows Few Identified” article provides a statistical representation and depiction

The Tringle Shirtwaist Fire was the epitome for the labor reform that would impact years to follow. In the year 1911, a tragic incident shook New York City, this incident being the “Triangle Shirtwaist Fire”. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company employed an approximate of 500 people these people being from the minority group of young Jewish and Italian women. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company had already started to play a “key role” in the era of labor history. After about 200 of the company’s women tried to join the “International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union abbreviated to (ILGWU) the company resorted to firing many of their women. In 1909, after the company had taken part in firing women after they tried to join the (ILGWU), it caused an outbreak better working and leading to a "walk-out" of the female garment workers. During the walk-out and strikes, the strikers worked towards having better-working conditions in the clothing factories.

March 25, 1911 about 145 people were killed due to a tragic fire. The fire was called the Triangle Factory, it was one of the largest disaster in New York before 9/11. Before the fire there weren’t many rules that aided in the prevention of massive fires, and a lot of people died because of that. Since the fire new labor laws and fire safety laws.

After the fire, the owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were instantly frowned upon for the death of the 146 people who lost their lives in the Triangle Factory Fire. Following the detest, the owners declared that the building was incombustible, and that the fire should not have occurred, using the Department of Building's statement of the matter to enhance their claim. However, the public pressured the city with an ultimatum, and demanded that a trial take place. The rejection of this ultimatum would result in riots and cause an equal or greater number of lives to be lost than the Triangle Factory Fire. The city had no choice but to accept, and so the investigation began. The charge that was being forced onto Max Blanck and Isaac Harris was manslaughter in the second degree, and the first argument was that the doors to the stairwells should not be locked during work hours. The owners refuted this, claiming that they were only trying to stop theft. They did not fully trust the workers, and they were trying to prevent vandalism at the same time. The owners used the locked doors to inspect the bags of the workers to ensure no fabrics or other valuable materials were stolen from the workplace. One owner, Max Blanck, according to Cornell University, had no idea that the doors were locked, and thus, the argument was dropped. The next topic was that what started the fire. The majority of people, including Albert Marrin,

In the Asch building, on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floor there were around 500 workers present. To avoid theft all the doors on the floors was locked, except one.The door that was unlocked happened to be surrounded by fire so there was no escape.

Billows of smoke rose into the dark clouds. Searing flames whipped and teared, growing by the second. It was chaos, and there was virtually no escape. The doors were locked, the elevators were broken, and the fire escape was collapsed. It seemed the only option was to jump. It is hard to imagine this fearful scene in real life, but this was the fate of the 146 workers who perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Though this was a truly awful event, it brought to light the much-needed change to create safer work environments for workers at that time. This accident sparked strikes and rallies against the garment industry from within both the New York Community, as well as the nation. With the help of unions fighting for this cause,

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory took place on March 25th, 1911 which led to 145 deaths. These deaths could have been prevented if the owner’s, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris would have kept up on proper maintenance within the building. There were several reasons why they should have been found guilty for manslaughter, but the courts found them to be not guilty. The reasons are as follows; doors were locked from the outside, water pressure in the hoses wasn’t sufficient and the hose nozzle was rusted shut, no sprinkler system found anywhere in the building, and only 3 of the 4 elevators were in good working order.

It’s a terrible thing, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it.’” With the help of labor unions and very powerful strikes, the citizens of the United States couldn't allow it to go unnoticed. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was much more modern than the other factories around town, so it was greatly desired to work there. The environment was more modern and appealing for those who immigrated to the United States because it had big windows for natural light and higher ceilings to expose a bigger working space. The only disadvantage to working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was the fourteen-hour workday with just a small pay of $2 a day at most before the bosses would dock their pay from the resources they used that day. At the end of the day, they were technically held captive until the foreman’s inspected pocketbooks and bags at the exit. The employers made sure no one would steal from the shop because they could lose profit. According to the film, Max Blanck would keep late nights just to calculate how much he would lose if someone did walk out with one of his products or resources. This in turn caused many deaths during the fire because he decided the main exit, at Washington Place, be kept locked at all

In factories and workplaces harsh conditions were a big problem, including 14+ hours a day, 6 day work weeks, little to no breaks, many were killed or injured. People like Samuel Gompers wanted labor unions to be put in place to protect citizens in the workplace and give them rights in there as well. One reason unsafe working conditions were brought to attention of the people was a fire in the “Triangle Shirt Waist Factory.” This was a fire where something flammable was thrown into the garbage and caught on fire, after all the women working noticed smoke rising they ran to fire exits noticing they were locked from the outside leaving hundreds unable to escape. Few were able to get down by elevator and get out safely and many were caught inside the room.