Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Analysis

The Triangle Fire, the Protocols of Peace and Industrial Democracy in Progressive Era New York, Richard A. Greenwald uses important factors to help explain the industrial management system. These key factors, the Protocols of Peace and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, are what lead to the evolution of a successful industrial democracy.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, New York City had become the center for the ladies’ garment industry, an industry that would help change the history of industrial relations. By experimenting with industrial democracy, all forces involved in labor were given a say for the first time. This was done by following the “Protocols of Peace,” an idea created by Louis Brandeis, which came to be

An important part of industrial democracy is the idea that employees get a say in the decisions made in the workplace. With the Protocols in place it was clear that manufacturers were favored, by making efficiency a priority over democracy. This fact created a shift in Protocolism, as “workers did not passively accept the protocol as created, workers shaped and contoured the developing industrial relations” (94). It can be said that the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was the greatest cause for change in industrial democracy. In the fire, 146 young women died because they could not escape due to the fire exits being chained shut. The unfortunate event of this fire offered an opportunity to finally constitute a real change in the industry when investigating agencies were unable to place the blame on one department. This led to the formation of the FIC, which first “concerned itself with issues of fire safety, hygiene, sanitation, and industrial accidents and disease” (170), and later “saw reform efforts become more concerned with what we would now call social welfare issues” (171). The FIC was just what was needed to finally begin to shape what the industry has become