Essay On Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at a Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the Asch building in Manhattan, and 146 workers died. When taking into consideration that the immediate causes of the deaths were insecure fire prevention facilities in the factory and coercive work disciplines, the fire, commonly known as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, became an evidence of the wretched life that American working class experienced during industrialization.

In particular, the main victims of this disaster were Jewish female workers who were the majority of the New York City’s garment workers and suffered from harsh labor conditions such as low wages, unstable job security, and excessive workload. In spite of the fact that they had already expressed

The chairman of the FIC, New York State Senator Robert F. Wagner, and the vice chairman, Assemblyman Alfred Emanuel ‘Al’ Smith, were representatives of rising politicians who epitomized the change of Tammany Hall. With the powerful support of Charles Francis Murphy, the boss of Tammany Hall, they were making progress for being the future leaders of the New York Democratic Party. Smith already had been renowned as the spokesperson for Tammany Hall, and Wagner took the President of the Senate in 1910. To Wagner and Smith, the posterities of immigrants, the FIC was a good opportunity to learn the specific plan of reforms and ameliorate the contradictions which they had experienced in the American society. In addition, by forming a partnership with the progressives and actively incorporating their demands into the political sphere, the New York Democratic Party could imprint in the public an impression that they had transformed from the corrupted political party into an innovative force capable of protecting working

To apprehend the actual conditions of labor in factories, their legislative activities had to accompany large-scale field investigation that demanded a large number of assistants. In the process, social activists from garment workers, such as Clara Lemlich, an executive board member of the Local 25 and the leader of the uprising of 20,000, and Rose Schneiderman, the WTUL’s labor activist who was getting a name by organizing female workers, were able to participate in the campaign of the FIC. Moreover, the FIC held public hearings to provide the opportunities for ordinary workers to testify about their labor conditions. During the year of 1912, it listened to 250 witnesses at 37 hearings and recorded testimonies of 3,500 pages. The FIC adopted many ordinary workers as well as experts as the witnesses of the hearing, and they could inform the public of their poor working conditions and gain social sympathy. As indicated by such active participation, the driving force of the FIC’s reform was not only emanated from the upper-middle class progressives but also rank-and-file workers and working class activists. Their aspirations for labor reform, triggered by the Triangle Fire, endeavored to create substantial alterations in the industrial society of New York under the