Hell on a Saturday Afternoon
By John F. McCormack Jr.
The tragic fire that took 146 lives also shed some light
on the evil conditions in an American factory.
It was payday for the girls
working at the Triangle
Shirtwaist Company.
A
gentle early spring breeze
wafted in the open windows
of the ten-story Asch
Building, situated on the northwest corner of Greene
Street and Washington Place, New York City. The
machines hummed along as they stitched the lace, lawn
and silk into shirtwaists. At 4:30 p.m. they were shut
down and the garment workers prepared to leave.
Suddenly, flames burst forth from a cluttered rag bin.
Efforts to extinguish the fire failed and hell on Saturday
afternoon began. March 25, 1911 was less than minutes
away for over 500 factory employees.
As the eighth storey fire began to spread, a bookkeeper
alerted the New York City Fire Department at
approximately 4:45p.m. She also tried to warn those on
the two floors above to evacuate the building. At first
some of the girls thought the message was a prank. After
all, the building was fire-proof. However, flames drawn
in the open windows from the eighth floor below soon
brought panic to the disbelievers. A babble of foreign
languages added to the confusion since a large
proportion of the workers were Jewish and Italian
immigrants. There were 146 lives lost in what National
Fire Protection Association figures show to be the worst
factory fire in history.
Life was difficult for all blue collar workers at the
beginning of the twentieth century. Organized labor
made few gains and these concerned skilled laborers.
Semi-skilled garment workers spent their lives living in
tenements and working in sweatshops. One of these girls
who worked in Brownsville (Brooklyn) described her
work:
The machines go like mad all day, because
the faster you work the more money you get.
Sometimes in my haste I get my finger caught
and the needle goes right through it. It goes
so quick though, that it does not hurt much.
I bind the finger up with a piece of cotton and
go on working. We all have accidents like that.
Where the needle goes through the nail it makes
for a sore finger, or where it splinters a bone it
does much harm. Sometimes the finger has to
come off….
This same woman earned $4.50 per week, paying out
$2.00 of that for room and board near the factory.
The shirtwaist industry at
the time of the Triangle fire
employed
over 40,000
workers in about 450 New
York factories. About eight
percent of these were single
women between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-five.
These girls worked between
fifty-six and fifty-nine hours
a week and as high as seventy during the busy season.
Wages ranged from $4.00 to as high as $10.00 per week.
Idle periods, however, could last as long as three months.
Moreover, substantial reductions were made in the
workers wages for use of electric power, needles and
thread. If an operator was a few minutes late to work, she
was docked a half-day pay. Frequently, factory managers
would actually lock employees in to force them to work
overtime. Very few ill workers were permitted to leave
before the days work was finished. Lunch hours were
habitually cut short and known union members were
summarily dismissed.
It was the latter action which led to an unexpected and
spectacular strike against Triangle Shirtwaist Company
and other firm in 1909.The shirtwaist makers union
ordered the strike when some of its members were fired
because of their union affiliation. The strike spread to the
whole industry. The Triangle Company then decided to
physically break the union by hiring tough’s with
criminal records as “special police to “protect” its
property. The Jewish Daily Forward printed some
photos of the brutalized strikers and public opinion
forced Triangle to find a new solution. It did. The
company now came up with one of the most unique
solutions ever employed to settle a strike. The toughs
were replaced outside the factory by prostitutes!
Meanwhile, the shirtwaist makers managed to secure
powerful allies of their own. Mary Dreier, president of
the Women’s Trade Union League, Mrs. Alva E.
Belmont, Mrs. Mary Beard, Anne Morgan, Inez
Milholland, Lenora O’Reilly, Victoria Pike, John
Mitchell of the United Mine Workers, Rabbi Stephen S.
Wise and lawyer Samuel Untermeyer. Rallies and
benefits were held under the guidance of these persons
and others. The girl’s from Vassar College worked on
behalf of the strikers. After a delegation of New Yorkers
visited Philadelphia, the shirtwaist makers there walked
off the job. The Philadelphians were visited by Helen
Taft, the U.S. President’s daughter, a student at nearby
Bryn Mawr College. She felt sorry for them and would
“speak to papa about the terrible conditions” there. She
then left for the opera.
The strike ended with the employees gaining much of
what they had asked: better working conditions, a fiftytwo hour week with no more then two hours per day
overtime and time and a half for that with a fixed wage
scale. Unfortunately, the issue of union recognition was
never
accepted
by
the
manufactures and there were
no
guarantees
that
the
employers would not revert to
form when they felt they could
get away with it.
Among the most obstinate of
the employers were Isaac
Harris and Max Blanck,
owners of the Triangle
Shirtwaist Company. The
firing union members by their
firm had precipitated the great
strike of 1909. As the largest
Shirtwaist manufacturers, they
intended to maintain their
leadership in the field by any means possible. For
instance, during the strike the hired strike breakers, thugs
and prostitutes to cow the strikers. They also set up a
phonograph on the ninth floor of the Asch Building so
that their workers could dance during lunch time. Blanck
even gave out prizes to the best dancers. When the strike
ended, so did the dancing.
aisles. Finished garments hung on the racks. Cardboard
and wooden boxes were stacked on the tenth floor.
Gasoline, used to heat the pressing irons, was stored on
the eighth floor. The ninth floor tables and wooden wells
where oil drippings from the machines collected just
above the knees of the operators. In addition, a large
barrel of oil was stored by a door. Stairwells were not
illuminated. A small fire escape led to a back courtyard.
Fire officials later estimated
that it would have taken three
hours for the five hundred
people on the top three floors to
go down this way. Water
valves were corroded shut with
their attached hoses rotting in
the folds. The Asch Building
was fire proof yet events show
it to be as fire proof as any
furnace is, consuming all
combustibles within it.
When the bookkeeper tried to
alarm the two floors above her,
the workday had just ended.
The unbelieving girl who
answered on the tenth floor finally comprehended and
reported the fire to Mr. Blanck. On the ninth floor Max
Hochfield was the first one to learn of the fire. He
worked near the forelady. As she reached out to ring the
quitting bell, he dashed past her into the stairwell and
down the stairs. He saw the flames as he passed the
eighth floor. He turned to go back for his sister when a
hand grabbed him and pushed him downward. The first
fireman had penetrated the burning building.
The owners were constantly concerned that their
employees were trying to steal yard goods. In 1907 an
Flames had flapped in the open windows of the two
incident occurred which indicated the great lengths to
floors above and panic gripped those frantically trying to
which the management would go to safeguard the
escape. Girls tried in vain to leave by locked doors.
company from such thefts. Two sisters were accused of
Others bunched up against the doors to the elevators
taking materials by Samuel Bernstein, superintendent.
shafts. Still other horrified the crowds now gathering on
They were returned to the building and forced to disrobe
the street below by appearing on windows ledges. “Don’t
before two female employees. The sisters further charged
jump!” they screamed. The
that three men watched the
horses of Hook and Ladder
proceedings
through
a
“The lesson of the hour is that while
Company 20 soon appeared
transom. No stolen items
pulling their apparatus behind
were found. Nevertheless,
property is good, life is better, that while
them. Quickly the firemen
this
obsession
that
possessions are valuable, life is priceless.”
raised their ladders, the tallest
employees were stealing
- Rabbi Stephen Wise
in New York City. The crowd
was to cost many lives in
gasped! The ladders, when
the fire. As a matter of
fully extended could only reach the sixth storey. Other
course, the eighth and ninth floors on the Washington
firemen and citizen volunteers grasped life nets. Garment
Place side of the building were locked. This forced the
workers jumped for them. The men were simply bowled
girls to go through a narrow passageway to the freight
over by the impact of the plummeting figures, some of
elevators on the Greene Street side. It also afforded an
them already aflame. It was of little use since the
opportunity for the management to make certain no one
distance was too great for the life nets to perform their
was pilfering yard goods.
purpose. Bodies had to be removed from atop fire hoses
as they were stretched into the building.
Other factors contributed to the disaster. There were
large bins filled with scraps of cloth waiting for the rag
At one point a man emerged at a ninth floor window. He
man to come for them. He had last appeared in January.
helped a young woman to the window then lifted her
Wicker baskets filled with finished goods lined the
outwards and let go. He performed this act three times
before the horrified onlookers below. A fourth girl came
to the window. The two figures embraced and kissed. He
then held her out and dropped her. Thereupon, he
climbed upon the window sill and
leaped to the pavement. It was an
act of love never to be forgotten by
the witnesses to the Triangle
holocaust.
There were others and amidst the
panic that Saturday afternoon who
kept their wits about them. Among
these no praise too high could be
extended to the elevator operators.
In grave danger, themselves, they
continued to operate their lifesaving machinery until no longer
able to raise the elevators. Joseph
Zito guesses he had personally
brought over a hundred people to
safety. Gaspar Mortillalo had his
elevator jam when too many forced
their way into and atop it. Man and
woman slid down the cables to
safety while others jumped down the shafts to serious
injury and death. One, Herman Meshel, had slid down
the cables under an elevator. He was found almost four
hours later in water up to his neck still in the shaft,
dazed, bleeding and whimpering pathetically.
By the time all who could get out of the Asch Building
had left. Only the doomed remained to be found by the
shaken fire fighters.
The Edison Company of New York
strung lights along Greene Street and
Washington Place and throughout the
burned-out floors of the Asch
Building. Firemen slowly lowered the
wrapped bundles which had once
been human beings. Bodies were
removed to the Twenty-sixth Street
pier where the city’s morgue
attendants and a number of derelicts
were pressed into service. Soon
grieving families came to identify, if
possible, their loved ones. The police
were hard-pressed to keep back the
grief-stricken. When the latter were
let in, the officers had to watch out for
suicides and the hysterical. Seven
victims would remain unidentified.
Meanwhile, the ghouls were at work
near the Asch Building. Among other
sounds on Monday morning were
those of young street hawkers selling alleged “dead girls
earrings” and “finger rings from the fire.”
However, most Americans were stunned by the disaster.
Officials sought to place the blame – somewhere,
anywhere. Charitable organizations appealed for aid for
families of the victims. Mayor William J. Gaynor issued
Those trapped on the tenth floor owned their lives to a
a call for public contributions. The respondents ranged
quick thinking college professor and his students.
from the great of the land to the insignificant. Andrew
Professor Frank Sommer, former Essex County, NJ
Carnegie immediately gave $5,000. A little boy and his
sheriff, was lecturing to a class of fifty New York
cousin donated $10, the proceeds of their “savings
University Law School students on the tenth floor of the
bank… to use it for somebody whose little (sic) girl
New York University-American Bank Company building
jumped out of a window…” The Red Cross was the
next door to the Triangle concern. The fire gongs
official agency designated by the mayor to receive funds
disrupted the class and Sommer rushed to the faculty
through its well-known treasurer, investment banker
room which looked across an areaway to the Asch
Jacob H. Schiff. As frequently happens, the theatrical
Building. What he saw he described as a “building that
community in New
was fast becoming a
York City was quick
roaring furnace.” He
It is more than likely that the Triangle Shirtwaist
to respond. Marcus
swiftly led his students
Fire changed the course of American Labor
Loew, Guilio Gattito the roof of the
Casazza, the Shuberts,
N.Y.U. structure, which
history by revealing the plight of the factory
the Hamersteins, Sam
was about fifteen feet
worker and the callousness of the bosses, blazing a
Harris, Al Jolson and
higher
than
its
path for FDR’s New Deal.
George M. Cohen
neighbor. They found
among others responded
two ladders left around
at once. Their benefit performances raised $15,000. In
by painters who were redecorating the building. These
all, the gigantic sum (for those days) of $120,000 was
were lowered to the roof of the Asch Building. Some
raised. The major difficulty was getting the people to
fifty persons, including Harris and Blanck and the latter’s
accept the money. The Red Cross found even the most
two children, who were visiting their father, were saved
destitute to be maddeningly independent.
by the college students. Several rooms in the college
building were scorched and firemen had to be directed
Several protest meetings were held during the days
there. Hundreds of valuable books were carried to safety
following the tragedy. These ranged from threats of
by the students before the firemen put out the smoldering
withholding tuition from frightened N.Y.U. students to
college rooms.
calls for violent action from the leftist orators. Perhaps
the most poignant of all protests was the funeral parade
called for April 5, after the city decided to bury the seven
remaining unidentified victims in Evergreen Cemetery,
East New York (Brooklyn).
Mayor Gaynor decided to bury these unfortunates
because he feared that the release of their remains would
lead to violence. Nevertheless, the Women’s Trade
Union League called for public memorial parade on the
same day. Rain drenched the marchers, as if the
elements, themselves, mourned the victims. The parade
consisted of two processions, one beginning uptown on
Fourth Avenue between 19th and 22nd Streets; the other
started at Seward Park where East Broadway and Canal
Street meet. They joined at Washington Square Park and
when the Asch Building was sighted a bone chilling wail
was emitted by the marchers.
Little Rose Schneiderman, the
outspoken enemy of the
exploiters, felt queasy in her
stomach.
A reporter asked if she was ill.
She was, for good reason. “As
we marched up Fifth Avenue,
there they were. Girls right at
the top of the hundreds of
buildings, looking down on us.
The structures were no
different
from
Asch
building…many
were…worse….There
they
were, leaning out of the upper
windows, watching us. This,
not the rain, is making me
sick.”
On April 11, the grand jury
investigating the fire handed
up indictments for first and second degree manslaughter
against Messrs. Harris and Blanck. Judge O’Sullivan
released them on 25,000 bail each. The main evidence
against them was a bolted lock attached to a charred
piece of wood. It came from the ninth floor of Asch
building. The owners were charged with the deaths of a
girl aged sixteen and a woman of twenty-two whose
bodies were found among fifty jammed up at the locked
door.
The “Shirtwaist Kings”, as they were known in the trade,
had made a fortune manufacturing the tops made famous
by the illustrator, Charles Dana Gibson. The “Gibson
Girl” was the epitome of American woman hood of the
time, with her upswept hair, slender figure, long skirt and
trim shirtwaist. Harris and Blanck catered to the demands
of the American woman through their New York and
Philadelphia factories. Now all that they had built up was
threatened.
Their trail did not begin until December 1911. When
they entered the New York criminal court building on
December 5, a crowd of 300 women surged at them,
waving photographs of lost love ones and crying,
“Murderers, murderers! Kill the murderers!” Max D.
Steuer, their attorney and some court officers managed to
get them to the courtroom. Police cleared the corridors.
The next day both men were again mobbed as they
entered and left a nearby restaurant at lunch time. The
trail dragged on with much contradictory testimony until
December 27. After an hour and three-quarters, the jury
found them innocent of the charges. Both the acquitted
and the jurors were smuggled out of the courtroom for
fear for their lives. Incomprehensibly, the next day’s
New York Times printed the names and addresses of the
jurymen!
Nonetheless, reform elements in
New York continued to press for
measures which would protect
factory workers. They were
following
the
admonition
pronounced by Rabbi Wise: “The
lesson of the hour is that while
property is good, life is better,
that while possessions are
valuable, life is priceless.”
New York State authorized a
Factory
Investigating
Commission of nine members
during the early summer of 1911.
The chairman was Robert F.
Wagner Sr., later U.S. Senator
from New York, who sponsored
much
labor
and
safety
legislation. Vice-Chairman was
Alfred E. Smith, later governor
of the state and 1928 Democratic
candidate for president. Sam Gompers. A.F.L. President
and Mary Dreier were other members. Among the
commission’s inspectors were Rose Schneiderman and
Frances Perkins, who became Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
Secretary of Labor. Henry Morgenthau provided free top
legal counsel in Abram Eikus and Bernard Shientag
because the state had not appropriated enough money for
legal fees. Within three years, thirty-six new pieces of
legislation bolstered the state’s labor laws. All were the
result of findings by the commission. The sacrifices of
the 146 had not been in vain, after all.
Frances Perkins stated later that much of the philosophy
and legislation of the New Deal rose, like a phoenix,
from the ashes of that hell on a Saturday afternoon
almost three quarters of a century ago, the “Great
Triangle Fire.”