Did The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Change The Relationship Between Labor And Industry?

On March 25,1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City was the deadliest business tragedy in the history of New York. Every morning 100,000 people would head off to work, some of the girls would be as young as ten years old. In Asch Building on the 10th floor was where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was located. The people had to work up to 14 hours a day with a salary of 2 dollars. Out of the 100,000people there were 500 blouse makers.

Many people might say, why was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire so important? The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was so important because it was a tragedy that opened the nation's eyes to poor working conditions in garment factories. Other question might be ask why were the doors locked in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? The building had only one fire escape, Long tables and bulky machines trapped many of the victims. Panicked workers were crushed as they struggled with doors that were locked by managers to prevent theft, or doors that opened the wrong way.

On March 25, 1911 at 4:45pm a fire started on the 8th floor. The fire doesn’t have an official cause but most speculate it was either a cigarette butt thrown in a waste basket or possibly an electrical short. The fire spread very quickly due to the paper and fabric that we piled in the factory. While some employees were trying to put the fire out with buckets of water other employees tried to make calls to the 9th and 10th floors. Attempts were made to use fire hoses that were located in the factory but when they went to turn the water on nothing came out.

Of the 142 lives the fire had claimed at least 125 of those people were woman or just mere teenagers. This fire was horrific as people from the street so women jumping from the bulding to their deaths in order to escape the fiery hell. Some bodies were so charred family members could only recognize them by the cloth threw wore and the trinkets they had. However, the owners are still to blame for this tragedy. Their lack of taking proper safety measures caused the death of 141 people.

In the book of “Triangle, The fire that Changed America”, David Von Drehle talks about the events before and after the fire that broke out on March 25 1911 on the Triangle shirtwaist factories eighth floor in Greenwich, New York. Firemen who emerged at the scene were unable to save the lives of those trapped inside: their ladders clearly weren't tall enough. Pedestrians on the street watched in fear as hopeless workers jumped to their death. The final count was 146 people -- 123 of them women nearly half of them being teenagers, It was the worst disaster in New York City history.

The people on the fire exit died because they crowded up and the fire spread there. There were also some people who died of inhalation of the smoke produced by fire.     This fire brought up the attention of workers’ safety. The conditions inside were terrible even though there were teenagers inside. The Triangle factory was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris.

Despite the death and destruction it caused, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire ultimately benefited America by opening the eyes of mistreated factory workers and inspiring them to fight for better working conditions. Though it was unbeknownst at the time, the fire would inspire mistreated workers to rise out of the ashes and work tirelessly not for a factory, but for their own wellbeing. The history, the fire, and the trial that are all connected to the Triangle Shirtwaist Company are the events that led to the exploration for better working conditions. While we may not wish to remember all of the suffering the conflagration caused, we see its imprint it left on society whenever we see someone at work. This just imprint is one of safety.

One of the biggest workplace disasters in the American industrial history was The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in Manhattan, New York. On March 25 of 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory, which manufactured women blouses, erupted in flames, killing 146 people and injuring nearly 71. Most of the people killed and injured by the fire were women and children. This incident caused an outrage among labor workers against hazardous working environments in factories not just in New York but also in many industrial centers all over the states.

There were about 500 workers working at this time when a fire began in a rag bin. Out of the 500 workers 146 of them had lost their lives. Those that survived were left to relive those agonizing moments of sheer terror and fear. Many of the workers were women, some as young as fourteen.

My question for this essay is how did the fire impact the people that got out. The triangle factory fire was a very tragic fire. There was not very many people that lived in the building. 146 of them were left to die because they could not find a way out.

187). Also the main cause for the fire being this deadly was “neither panic nor inadequate means of escape,” (Drehle, 2003, p. 187) It was the heat that rushed into the people before the flames. This deadly fire led to many reforms occurring such as “Better fire escapes, enclosed fireproof stairs, automatic sprinklers and fire drills,” (Drehle, 2003, p. 185). The author, Drehle proved his argument that this book explains the horrors of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire by saying that “Fire… Get on the roof,” (Drehle, 2003, p.130).

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire In March of 1911 the deadliest industrial fire disaster in the history of New York City and one of the deadliest in US history occurred that changed the world. Men and women who were working hard in the Asch building, ready to be released in five minutes, burned to their death in a matter of minutes. By the senseless actions of a worker throwing his cigarette into a bin filled with scraps of inflammable clothing, the whole building suffered.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a deadly blaze that ended the lives of 146 garment workers in New York City in the year 1911. Many of those who perished were Jewish and Italian immigrant women, trying to make a living working at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Many died in a very violent fashion. As described by one observer, “Jumping from ten stories up! They are going through the air like bundles of clothes and the firemen can’t stop them and the policeman can’t stop them and nobody can help at all” (Klein, 2001, pg. 498).

On the evening of March 25, 1911, the work day was coming to an end, but four small fires broke out on the eighth floor of the “Fireproof” Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, and located in the top three floors of the Asch Building, on Greene Street and Washington Place in Manhattan (Timeline). Despite the ‘no smoking’ rules, workers and managers often did so in the factory: when one of them lit scraps of cloth, the heaps of garments caught fire - it spread rapidly through the building (1911). It started fires in the waste bins full of garnet scraps as well as the paper patterns on the ceiling. Workers fruitlessly used pails of water in an attempt to put it out (Drehle). The doors that would free the six-hundred workers were locked shut.

The detrimental Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is considered to be one of the most tragic disasters in history. On March 25th, 1911, a fire broke out and killed 146 garment workers who were mostly women. These women worked countless hours with low wages and inhumane working conditions in a factory. Even though this event was tragic, the triangle shirtwaist fire helped to shape the new world for the better. The multitude of workers trapped within the inferno to their demise was the final straw for the mistreatment of America’s workers.