Triangle The Fire That Changed America Analysis

720 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Harmful effects of industrial capitalism

On March 25th, 1911, workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory thought it would just be another long day at work. Little did 146 of them know that it would be their last day earning little pay in the dreadful place. Near the end of the workday, a fire broke out on the 8th floor of the factory. Many workers could not escape due to the locked exits and stairwells, which resulted in many people jumping to their death. Like any factory in the 1900s, the experiences and conditions working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were not appealing to the many who immigrated to the United States, but it was necessary to earn money. In Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, David Von Drehle tells about the immigrant workers experience at the factory, challenges and dangers of industrialization, workers demands for a union, and the relationship between labor and government as a result of the fire.
Every morning, six days a week, hundreds of thousands of people, the majority of them women, crowded the streets of NYC on the way to work in the city’s factories. Many of these workers were immigrants who left their country in hope for a better future in America. During this time, men were superior to women, resulting in more women employment in garment factories because they required less pay, and men did not expect women to rebel against them. These ladies …show more content…

Fire and safety laws were finally carried out and practiced, fire extinguishers were mandatory, alarm and sprinkler systems had to be installed, better working and eating environments were made available to employees, there were standards for minimum wages, and there was a limited number of hours women and children could work. Thankfully, the government realized the changes that needed to be installed to improve working conditions, regardless if the people working were immigrants or

Show More
Related

  • The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of New York City

    500 Words  | 1 Pages

    On July 13, 1900 Joseph Aschs’ new building plans in New York City are approved and by January 5, 1901 the building is complete. In 1906, the eighth floor of the Asch building is bought by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company who opens a factory there. Three years later, a letter is sent to the management of the Triangle Shirtwaist building from a fire prevention expert. He suggests they that a discussion about evaluating and enhancing safety measures. Unfortunately, management does not take the letter seriously and “the letter is ignored.” (Linder, “Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial”) The inhumane work conditions in the factory led to the decision of twenty-five ILGWU workers to declare strike against th...

    Read More

  • Jo Ann Argersinger's The Triangle Fire

    691 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

    1711 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Disorderly Women By Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    Author Jacquelyn Dowd Hall’s article titled, “Analysis of Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militance in the Appalachian South” presented many interesting aspects from a mentally refreshing point of view that stood out compared to other articles that speak on the topic of textile industries. Refreshing, due to the fact that it shed light onto the women perspective of the often male dominated topic. Jacquelyn Hall speaks on just how women are often marginalized in nearly every aspect of society. These aspects include the workforce and historical documents, and this very marginalization of women as an entirety is commonly displayed each and every day. Jacquelyn Hall began the article by introducing the readers to a young woman by the name of

    Read More

  • Triangle Fire Essay

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    Disasters can be so impactful; some can forever change the course of history. While many at the time thought this story would soon pass, and with it all the potential bad publicity, the story of the Triangle fire spread quickly, and outraged many people. On a beautiful spring day in March 1911 when 146 workers lost their lives, a fire would prove it could do what years of reformers had failed to do, get the government on the side of the workers. I would argue that the fire largely impacted the country. Specifically, the Triangle Fire ended up changing New York’s interconnected political and economic scene, and spurred on the creation of stricter safety codes. For the first time owners would hold responsibility for their actions. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris; being indicted for manslaughter was proof of this. Social change seemed to be spurred as well; the general public and newspapers would come back the workers of New York. Large institutions would suffer as well. Tammany Hall would be feared less and less by waves of new immigrants. The largest change brought about by the blaze would be legislation. Twenty-five bills, recasting the labor laws of the state

    Read More

  • The Role Of Women In Slacks And Calluses

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    The men in the factories looked at the women coming in as just an extra pair of hands. They were mostly indifferent. Even so, the women could not date the men. This rule was more of a control effort and a bit of the women not being seeing as respectable women. Yet, the bosses were at a lost because they were not used to women working. The bosses tried to enforce rules; when they were broken, the bosses did not know how to punish the women because they were women. The women had to wear hats, even if their hair was longer than the men. The women did not like this because they felt as though they were being discriminated against. They would wear slacks and carry tools because the men had to, but the men did not wear head coverings. Also, everyone that worked in the factories, besides the factory women, viewed them as girls because a true woman would be at home taking care of the house. They had to trade in their smooth soft hands for rough hands filled with

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclair And The Progressive Era

    1725 Words  | 4 Pages

    It is the worker’s condition that he truly focuses on. Many of the problems that people faced during this time include: tenement housing, poor working conditions, child labor, monopolies of business, social and political inequality, and most importantly people putting profits over lives. It is around the same time that a terrible fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The unsafe working conditions made the employees escape nearly impossible.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Christine Stansell's City Of Women

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Christine Stansell’s City of Women, the main issue discussed is “the misfortunes laboring women suffered and the problems they caused” (xi). Throughout the book, Stansell delves into the different aspects that affected these female New Yorkers’ lives, such as inadequate wages, societal stigmas about women laborers, and the hierarchal class system, within antebellum America. She argues that since the nation’s founding, in 1789, the bedrock of these tribulations working women would be mercilessly exposed to was gender inequality. Women’s opportunities and livelihoods were strongly dependent on the dominant male figure in their life, due to the fact that in that period there was very few available and accepted forms of employment for women. Stansell claims, “Paid work was sparse and unstable. Laboring women were confined within a patriarchal economy predicated on direct dependence on men” (18). As the work continues, she illustrates these women’s desires to break away from their reliance on men, as well as the avenues they took to achieve this desired independence. To help solidify her

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Documentary Freedom Summer

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    The documentary strived to show us how factories were corrupt that they couldn’t provide good working conditions for the workers until we lost people. This documentary is about the tragic fire that took place on March 25, 1911 in the Triangle factory. We can clearly see through this documentary that these people didn’t matter to the factory owners because their needs were not met. The documentary shows that the year before the fire took place the workers led a strike asking for better working conditions, but obviously their voices were not heard. After the fire took place this is when factories started improving working conditions. It is sad to learn that it took 146 lives of innocent people in order for factory owners to be convinced that they need to improve the poor working

    Read More

  • Women in the Twentieth Century

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.

    Read More

  • Out of This Furnace and Triangle the Fight for Progressive Reform

    1552 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Triangle based on the Triangle Waist Company Factory fire that took place on March 21, 1911 in New York City. Unlike Out of This Furnace the Triangle a true story that focus on the work condition of female immigrant workers who worked in a sweat-house in unsafe condition. At the time of the fire, this started on the eighth floor of the building. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company locked all the exit doors to assure that the worker may not leave or enter the factory ...

    Read More

  • A Historical Perspective: The Wage Gap

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    For several decades, most American women occupied a supportive, home oriented role within society, outside of the workplace. However, as the mid-twentieth century approached a gender role paradigm occurred. The sequence of the departure of men for war, the need to fill employment for a growing economy, a handful of critical legal cases, the Black Civil Rights movement seen and heard around the nation, all greatly influenced and demanded social change for human and women’s rights. This momentous period began a social movement known as feminism and introduced a coin phrase known in and outside of the workplace as the “wage-gap.”

    Read More

  • Essay On Triangle Fire

    513 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911 was one of the worst tragedies to occur during that time. In the fire 148 workers were killed in the building, most of victims were killed instantly either by the fire or leaping from the eighth, ninth ad tenth story of the building. As onlookers outside of the building watched, many of the women and girls were in the burning building, and were seen jumping from the windows of the building, falling to the pavement. Many of the workers jumped, because the fire department had a harder time reaching them on the higher floors. Some of the workers thought there were nets all around the building, so they were either pushing people out or jumping out themselves. Some of the workers were even found hunched over their sewing machines on the narrow tables. The fire made more people aware of the bad conditions of the factories, and the workers safety. It also showed the absence of the factory owners concern for their works wellbeing and safety. Though the owners of the business were found not guilty, the fire led

    Read More

  • The History of Freedom

    1666 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... they were able to receive shorter work hours, the right to free speech and overall better working conditions. These changes were just the beginning of what would be a whole new sense of freedom for the working American people.

    Read More

  • The Women's Liberation Movement

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    The focus of The Women’s Liberation Movement was idealized off The Civil Rights Movement; it was founded on the elimination of discriminary practices and sexist attitudes (Freeman, 1995). Although by the 1960s women were responsible for one-third of the work force, despite the propaganda surrounding the movement women were still urged to “go back home.” However the movement continued to burn on, and was redeveloping a new attitude by the 1970s. The movement was headed by a new generation that was younger and more educated in politics and social actions. These young women not only challenged the gender role expectations, but drove the feminist agenda that pursued to free women from oppression and male authority and redistribute power and social good among the sexes (Baumgardner and Richards, 2000).

    Read More

More about Triangle The Fire That Changed America Analysis

Open Document