Triangle Factory Fire Essay

On March 25, 1911 in New York City thousands stood by and watched as the Triangle Waist Factory quickly caught fire on one of its top floors. Within 20 minutes 146 people had either burned to death in the flames or had chosen to jump from the windows instead. This fire was considered one of the worst events in the Industrial Revolution, but it did bring to light the almost inhuman conditions in most of the factories in the early 20th century.

The conditions of these factories were very bad, in the case of the Triangle Waist Factory simple fire precautions were even ignored such as to not lock the doors and to make the doors open out. In Sadie Frowne’s story “Days and Dreams” she mentions how sometimes the sewing machine would be going

so fast that the needle would go right through her finger, but she would just bind the finger with some cotton and keep working because accidents like that happened all the time there. Many other factories, or “sweatshops” as they were known by many people, also had many safety hazards such as the Cotton Mills and Coal Factories. The most at risk for the health risks these places brought were children; children were a large work force at this time and would usually start their first jobs at about 8 or 9. In the Cotton Mills the unprotected pulley belts that powered the machines could injure children or if they were to breath in the cotton dust they were at risk of developing Brown Lung Disease. In the Coal Industry children were used in the factories to remove slate from the conveyor belts, but being around the coal dust so much made them develop Black Lung Disease which would’ve lead to Emphysema and Heart Failure for them later in life. For adults the most dangerous jobs were the railroad jobs. In 1889 around two thousand railroad workers were killed and about 20 thousand were injured at work.
The fire started because of the poor fire precautions such as the locked exit doors (which the owners claimed they locked because some workers were stealing things), the ninth story fire escape didn’t lead anywhere, and because the doors were made to open in instead of out. The fire department ladders also could not reach all the way up the factory, this cause many people to jump out the windows because they didn’t want to have to burn to death, they would’ve rather died quickly. Though the fire was very deadly more of the workers died because they jumped out the window not because they burned to death.
In the article “Results from the Preliminary Report of the New York Factory Investigation Commission”, from to Cornell University page about the Triangle Factory fire, it explains how the law declared it as a neglect of the human factor or that the factory owners weren’t thinking about their employs where they were making the factories.

Many factories at this time were spend a lot of money on new and better machines to make production go faster, but they were greatly neglecting the care, health and safety of their employees. The neglect of the human factor is why so many preventable defects in factories were able to exist such as workshops with inadequate lighting, no provision for ventilation, little or no cleaning done, and with no ordinary comforts like washing facilities, water supplies, or bathrooms. Most industries did not include things that they felt weren’t necessary for production of what ever goods were produced in their factories, this lack of caring for their workers was the reason that occupational diseases and work related injuries occurred so often. There are still very few regulations on factory construction other than the building codes such as the width of the walls and the strength of the foundation. In that time and even now a days workers spend the greater part of their day working. Back then though most people spent that time in either a workshop or a factory, the proper sanitation of the workplace is therefore very important to the worker. Not long after these things really started to come to light did most people begin to realize that the factories sanitation was so closely related to the factories

efficiency.
The fire did do some good in the long term; it made the push for workers safety laws and the fair treatment of workers more realistic because it showed just how bad these places were. Right after the fire happened many people demanded justice for those who had died in the factory and for those who were working in factories with very poor conditions. Many workers even went to the union quarters to give testimonies about to poor conditions in the factories where they were working.