Carver Michaud Mrs. Higgins 2B 3 March 2024 The inferno that engulfed The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in March of 1911 went down as a disaster that rapidly changed the history of America. This turning point was etched in history as a testament to the consequences of corporate negligence. Its legacy served as a reminder to prioritize human life and happiness over industry. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City experienced a devastating fire caused by the negligence of its owners, which resulted in the deaths of 146 women. This event marked a crucial turning point that not only impacted how workers were viewed and treated socially and politically, but also created profound changes in the economy. From the ashes of this fire emerged an influential movement for reform, reshaping not only the …show more content…
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire went down in history as a turning point that catalyzed the success of the reform campaigns and created multiple laws, which continue to impact politics to this day. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a turning point that led to the success of worker’s conditions reform campaigns. According to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, “... with the help of such workers' rights advocates as Frances Perkins, enacted eight laws covering fire safety, factory inspections, sanitation, and employment rules for women and children” (“Triangle Shirtwaist Fire”). The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire marked the beginning of the success of worker reform campaigns by catalyzing influential advocates like Frances Perkins to push for worker’s conditions reform campaigns. Additionally, “[after the fire], the role of labor unions in preventing such a tragedy became clearer. After the fire, LGWU led a protest for higher wages, shorter hours, and extra pay for overtime.” (''The Fire That Sparked the Labor
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.
INTRODUCTION On March 25, 1911, 146 garment factory workers their lives in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. In less than an hour, these workers died from asphyxiation, burns, or jumping to their deaths in a futile attempt at escape (McGuire, 2011). The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is the eighth through tenth floors of New York City’s Asch building, and employs approximately 700 workers, 500 of them young women and girls (McGuire, 2011). A fire quickly broke out on the eighth floor shortly before the end of the work day.
In the book “The Triangle Fire: A Brief History with Documents” by Jo Ann E. Argersinger. In a short summary this book talks about the tragic factory fire that took lives of 146 workers in New York City, March 25, 1911. The tragedy happened during the great uprising of a women revolution, of many young females going to work to support their families. During this period many women wanted to be treated and work like how men worked. Having equal rights at jobs that were a risk to them, nothing stopped the uprising, until the fire became a change. Both sympathy and rage among all sectors of the American public got up to fight for a change. Argersinger examines in the context, trajectory, and impact of this Progressive Era event. During the Progressive Era, many big changes were being
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.
275 girls started to collect their belongings as they were leaving work at 4:45 PM on Saturday. Within twenty minutes some of girls' charred bodies were lined up along the East Side of Greene Street. Those girls who flung themselves from the ninth floor were merely covered with tarpaulins where they hit the concrete. The Bellevue morgue was overrun with bodies and a makeshift morgue was set up on the adjoining pier on the East River. Hundred's of parents and family members came to identify their lost loved ones. 146 employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were dead the night of March 25, 1911. The horror of their deaths led to numerous changes in occupational safety standards that currently ensure the safety of workers today.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire most of all impacted all forms of industry, and changed the way workers worked. Along with the legislations that impacted women and children, laws also centered on the safety and well being of all workers. One of the main reforms and changes came through the formation of the New York Factory Investigating Commission, or the FIC: a legislative body that investigated the manufacturers for various infractions. They were based on protecting the workers: both their rights and their lives. The FIC investigated countless factories and “enacted eight laws covering fire safety, factory inspections and sanitation.” The FIC was highly focused on the health and safety of industrial workers, making reports and legislation that focused on “fire safety, building construction, machine guarding, heating, lighting, ventilation, and other topics” and on specific industries like “chemicals, lead trades, metal trades, printing shops, sweatshops and mercantile establishments.” Thirteen out of seventeen of the bills submitted by the FIC became laws, and “included measures requiring better fire safety efforts, more adequate factory ventilation, improved sanitation and machine guarding, safe operation of elevators” and other legislations focused for specific establishments.” Fire safety and new fire codes such as “mandate emergency exits, sprinkler systems, and maximum-occupancy laws,” such as the Fire Prevention Act of 1911, were put into place to limit the likelihood that another fire like the one at Triangle would occur, or be as drastic and deathly. Other organizations like the Joint Board of Sanitary Control “set and maintain standards of sanitation in the workplace,” as well as actually enforcing these stand...
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was remembered as one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was owned by Max Blank and Isaac Harris. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory grew quickly as Max and Isaac moved their business from a little shop by 1901 to the new ten-story Asch building at the top three floors. There were approximately five hundred workers who worked in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company at the time while the fire broke out. The workers were mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women (Campbell 210-212). The incident happened in Manhattan, New York City in March, 25, 1911; also, as one important event that held relevance in American .This incident was the deadliest industrial disaster. 146 workers died, and they either died from the fire or jumped from the window. They jumped out from the window because the fire trucks’ ladders could only reach up to the seventh floor. After the incident, there were demands for enhanced law to protect workers health and safety, including factory fire codes and child labor law that helped shape future labor laws; however, there was evidence that the fire wouldn’t have happened if the company owners had listened to the warnings, and the owners were found unfairly not guilty in the court.
Often, children were forced to work due to money-related issues, and the conditions they worked in were terrible. Children worked in coal mining, such as at Woodward Coal Mining in Kingston, Pennsylvania (Doc. 7). Children were used to make the process of producing products cheaper, and they were paid low wages; the capitalists hired children just to keep the process of making products going and to make profit. One cause of child labor in harsh conditions was the unfateful fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City in 1911. Teenaged immigrant girls that were employed there worked under sweatshop-like conditions. The building they worked in was inadequately equipped in case of a fire, for the doors were locked, leaving no exit for the girls, and the single fire escape collapsed with the rescue effort; as a result, when the fire started, they were unable to escape. 145 workers were killed, but the company owners were not penalized harshly for this tragedy. This further demonstrates that capitalists were able to get away with the harsh conditions that they put their laborers, especially child laborers, through for their own benefit, which is making more money and using any means to get it, even if those means are low wages and harsh working
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 this fire, and the work industry would never remain the same again.
The novel Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle is a novel that brought worldwide recognition of what terrible events that occurred on March 25th 1911. Von Drehle is a well-known American author and a journalist. With a bachelor degree from the University of Denver, and earning his masters in literature from Oxford University. He worked in many newspapers such as the Denver post, the Washington post, and the Times. Therefore, publishing many pieces which he received an award for such as Among the lowest of the dead: inside death row, Deadlock: the indie story of Americas closest election, and Rise to greatness: Abraham Lincoln and Americas most perilous year. The novel Triangle is about a shirtwaist factory fire that occurred on March 25th, 1911. It was a deadly fire that happened in the New York triangle factory that killed approximately 146 workers. This tragedy is well remembered in American industrial history, because the deaths could have been prevented. Most of the victims were burned alive or jumped to their death, because the factory did not have the proper safety equipment and the doors being locked within the building. This tragedy brought attention to the dangerous working conditions that the victims endured in the sweatshop factories. Which therefore led to new laws
In his book Death in the Haymarket, James Green recounted the American labor movement in the late 1800s. Green’s main focus in his book was the bombing of Haymarket, which occurred on May 4 of 1886. Beginning as a peaceful protest promoting the eight-hour work day, a bomb was thrown causing devastating consequences. The Haymarket bombing almost ended the labor movement altogether, with unjustified trials and fear implemented amongst all Americans. However, it is important to know that the Haymarket bombing is not just an isolated event. From starting out with wage cuts, to people going on strike, labor unions starting up, to almost losing the labor movement altogether. The Haymarket bombing
The early 1900s was a time of many movements, from the cities to the rural farms; people were uniting for various causes. One of the most widespread was the labor movement, which affected people far and wide. Conditions in the nation’s workplaces were notoriously poor, but New York City fostered the worst. Factories had started out in the city’s tenements, which were extremely cramped, poorly ventilated, and thoroughly unsanitary. With the advent of skyscrapers, factories were moved out of the tenements and into slightly larger buildings, which still had terrible conditions. Workers were forced to work long hours (around 12 hours long) six hours a day, often for extremely low pay. The pay was also extremely lower for women, who made up a large portion of the shirtwaist industry. If a worker were to openly contest an employer’s rule, they would be promptly fired and replaced immediately. Also, strength in numbers did not always work. Managers often hired brutal strikebreakers to shut movements down. The local police and justice were often of no help to the workers, even when women were being beaten. At the time, the workers needs were not taken seriously and profit was placed ahead of human life. This was not just a struggle for workers’ rights; it was also a movement for the working class’ freedom.
“Terrible forces seemed out of control and the nation seemed imperiled. Farmers and workers had been waging political war against capitalists and political conservatives for decades, but then, slowly, toward the end of the nineteenth century a new generation of middle class Americans interjected themselves into public life and advocated new reforms to tame the runaway world of the Gilded Age” (American Yawp). Until one of the major tragedy happened known as the Triangle Shirtwaist were the factory was caught fire and many women had died or were injured. Events such as the Triangle Shirtwaist fire convinced many Americans of the need for reform, but the energies of activists were needed to spread a new commitment to political activism and government interference in the economy” (American Yawp). This is similar to the documentary video, A Dangerous Business, because, “workers had become injured in the McWane Corporation, safety was sacrificed to increase productivity” (Frontline/ Bergman). “Few years passed till OSHA found many violations but still owners would still put their workers at risk breaking violations time passed and suddenly they had too many violations that McWane had spent $5 million to develop a self-contaminated water treatment system, eliminated hazards, hired
A fire that was said to be caused from an unextinguished match or cigarette, set ablaze this highly flammable work environment. This tragedy brought attention to the unregulated/unsafe working conditions that the women who had lost their lives were experiencing. In response, the Ladies Waist-makers Union formed one of the world’s largest female strikes. This is an example of a successful strike that was effective in achieving higher wages and improved working conditions. This strike marked the significance of women workers organizing and achieving bargaining
Beginning in the late 1700’s and growing rapidly even today, labor unions form the backbone for the American workforce and continue to fight for the common interests of workers around the country. As we look at the history of these unions, we see powerful individuals such as Terrence Powderly, Samuel Gompers, and Eugene Debs rise up as leaders in a newfound movement that protected the rights of the common worker and ensured better wages, more reasonable hours, and safer working conditions for those people (History). The rise of these labor unions also warranted new legislation that would protect against child labor in factories and give health benefits to workers who were either retired or injured, but everyone was not on board with the idea of foundations working to protect the interests of the common worker. Conflict with their industries lead to many strikes across the country in the coal, steel, and railroad industries, and several of these would ultimately end up leading to bloodshed. However, the existence of labor unions in the United States and their influence on their respective industries still resonates today, and many of our modern ideals that we have today carry over from what these labor unions fought for during through the Industrial Revolution.