Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire;
Reforming Labor Practices and
Revolutionizing Factory Regulations
Samantha Berger
Senior Division
Individual Paper
All it took was one mistake. That mistake, however, would change their lives
forever. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was the worst work place fire in the history
of New York City, and it maintained that record for 90 years, until September 11, 2001
(Hoenig). The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire led to the reform of factory regulations
and revolutionized labor practices in the United States of America.
The American Dream; any one could succeed in the United States if they worked
hard enough. More opportunities. A better future. These visions are what brought many
foreign immigrants to the United States. Most of the immigrants were young women
trying to earn money to support their families. All around them they saw the riches that
were promised by the American Dream. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
Fire, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, had immigrated from Russia only ten years earlier
and had already achieved this dream. They were now known as “shirtwaist kings” and
owned one of the most modern factories of the time (Triangle Fire. American
Experience).
The Triangle Shirtwaist Company employed over 500 workers, and
manufactured ten to twelve thousand shirtwaists each week. These workers were
among the thousands of New Yorkers working in the garment industry. The ready-made
clothing industry was booming and made the shirtwaists affordable for everyone, even
working women. A shirtwaist is a tailored woman's blouse with buttons down the front.
The shirtwaist was worn with an ankle length skirt, and was appropriate for every
occasion, work and play. Shirtwaists were also much more comfortable and practical
than the fashions before such as hoops and corsets (Uprising 20,000).
The shirtwaist makers were mostly women, many as young as 14. Their life
was not easy. They worked seven days a week, from 7am to 8pm with a half hour lunch
break. Work was non stop during the busy season. They were paid only six dollars a
week and were frequently required to use their own needles, thread, irons and sewing
machines. One young worker described the factories as, “Unsanitary-that’s the word
that is generally used, but there ought to be a worse one used” (Uprising of 20,000).
The date was March 25, 1911. The workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company
Factory in lower Manhattan were trying to fill their quotas before quitting time. The
factory occupied the top three floors of the Asch Building off Washington Square and
Greene Street. Under the long work benches of the factory, there were large waste bins
containing loose scraps of thin cotton material and paper patterns. Around 4:45pm,
someone on the eighth floor still at their machine shouted “Fire!” William Bernstein, an
employee of the factory grabbed water pails and tried to extinguish the fire. Loosely
packed cotton is very explosive, and it helped the fire spread rapidly. Above the cutting
tables, the lines of hanging patterns caught fire. A shipping clerk dragged a hose from
the stairwell into the loft, but the water pressure was so minimal, no water came out
(Linder). Soon, the entire floor was on fire. Dinah Lifschitz, a worker on the eighth floor
telephoned the tenth floor to warn them, but she was unable to reach anyone on the
ninth floor (Linder).
At the time of the fire, Professor Frank Sommer was teaching his class at the
New York University Law School next door. He saw the terrified factory workers on the
roof 15 feet below him and sprang into action. He and two of his law students; Charles
T. Kremer and Elias Kanter, led some of the other students to the roof. There were
several ladders that had been left by painters, and the students used them to form a
bridge and help the workers cross. The law students recalled seeing the men and
women fighting for safety and some said they saw men bite and kick the women (New
York Fire Kills 148). They saved 150 workers and Kremer saved another girl from the
floor below who had escaped, but was unconscious.
There were only a few ways out of the building. Two stairways, two doors, a
fire escape and several ladders to the roof. The fastest workers made it through to the
Greene Street stairs and were able to climb down the fire escape before it collapsed,
killing 24 people. The stairways were in flames. Elevator operators, Joe Zitto and Joe
Gaspar brought the elevators to the eighth floor, and girls fought to get in. Each elevator
could only hold 10 people. Zitto and Gaspar continued to bring up the elevators while
the fire burned. The last person on the last elevator, Katie Weiner, grabbed the cable
that ran through the elevator and swung into it, landing on the head of other girls. A few
other girls survived by jumping onto the roof of the elevator. The girls’ weight caused the
elevator to sink to the bottom of the shaft and made it inoperable (Linder).
By the time the fire reached the ninth floor, the only options left were the two
exit doors at the end of the loft. Two hundred seventy-five girls ran for the doors,
however, the doors were illegally locked to prevent stealing and they could not be
unlocked or forced open. The workers who were in front were crushed by the other
workers behind them. Only the foreman held the key, and he was trapped on the street
below watching helplessly (Triangle Fire Experience).
The only other way to escape was to jump. Nine stories onto a cold, hard
sidewalk. Workers jumped from windows in groups of three and four. Crowds had
gathered and watched in horror as the innocent workers leapt to their death. Factory
workers were slow to report the fire to the fire department, but a passerby on the street
used the fire call box to alert firefighters. Engine company 33 and 72 were first on the
scene (Triangle Shirtwaist Fire). When they finally arrived, they had trouble positioning
their hoses because they were afraid of crushing the bodies on the sidewalk (Rosa).
The ladders could not reach the top floors of the factory and the water from the hoses
could only reach between the sixth and seventh floors. The life nets brought by firemen
broke as bodies tore through them. Some firemen tried using a horse blanket from the
ambulances, but it split in two. One man ran from window to window, picking up girls
and dropping them out the window thinking that the nets would catch them. Three of the
male workers formed a human chain from the eighth floor window to the adjacent
window of a neighboring building in attempt to help girls cross before falling 80 feet to
their death (Rosa). William Shepard, reporter for United Press called in the story from a
pay phone.
“I learned a new sound, more horrible sound than description can picture. It
was the thud of a speeding living body on a stone sidewalk.
Thud...dead...thud...dead. ..thud ...dead...thud...dead... I call them that, because the
sound and the thought of death came to me each time, at the same instant. I watched
one girl fall, waving her arms trying to keep her body up right. The bodies hit the
sidewalk like rain” (Shepard).
Firefighters and passerbys were crushed by falling bodies. Some of the
workers jumped and tried to grab onto the ladders, but missed. The fire was
extinguished in under half an hour, but that half an hour was one of the most
devastating in history.
The endless piles of bodies on the sidewalks were drenched in water, and
doctors crawled though “heaps of humanity” looking for life (Account of Triangle Fire
Trial). The water in the gutters were stained red with blood, and the scent of it was
disturbing the fire engine horses. It took firefighters more than an hour and a half before
they could enter the eighth floor of the factory. They searched the burned factory looking
for survivors. However, all they found were bodies that had been burned to the bone,
some still bent over their sewing machines. There were hundreds of bodies on the floor,
not including the 25 bodies found in the elevator shaft. Firemen found 19 bodies melted
against the locked door, and 25 more found dead huddled together in the cloakroom
(Rosa). Four hours after the fire, workers discovered one lone survivor who was trapped
in rising water at the base of an elevator shaft. “The Triangle building was fireproof; but
not death proof” (Rosa). Among the remains, inspectors found eleven engagement rings
(Burns). Below the building, firemen searched the water and gas filled basement under
the street for survivors. One fireman found the bodies of two women draped across
steam pipes.
As night approached, the firemen started removing bodies. Searchlights from
Greene Street and Washington Place were directed onto the upper floors as firemen
used nets to lower the bodies two and three at a time out the window. The bodies were
spread out in a row on the east side of Greene Street on a dark red canvas.
Ambulances ran throughout the night, bringing the dead bodies to Bellevue Morgue on
26th street and the tin roofed pier on the East River. The ambulances were lined up on
the street like taxis (Rosa). Around 6pm, hundred of hysterical, screaming families and
friends of the factory workers rushed down to the police station on Mercer Street looking
for survivors. The doors were shut because of the number of people and the doorman
informed them of the temporary morgue that was being set up on the East River.
The police had called for 75 to 100 coffins from the morgue, but only 65 were
available. Commissioner Drummond sent the charities department steamer, the
Bronx ,to the Blackwells Island to bring in 200 coffins to the Metropolitan Hospital
(Rosa). The bodies were lined up in the coffins for identification. Over the next few days,
hundreds of people gathered to identify their loved ones. It was estimated that about
100 people arrived every minute. A temporary police station was opened at the pier and
40 police men were assigned to help the families. Many of the people that came were
curious, as they had read about the fire in the newspaper, and snuck past security. Only
six of the victims were unidentified, and three days later, several hundred thousand
people turned up for a funeral procession honoring them (Triangle Fire Experience).
The newspaper writers made no list of the victims, however, in 2003, David Von Drehle
combed through newspapers and other documents matching records with the names of
individuals and released a complete list of victims (Hoenig).
After the fire, the owners of the Triangle Factory were able to afford high priced
legal help. Their lawyer, Max Steuer helped them realize a profit they could earn from
the fire, so they filed insurance claims far exceeding their losses (Hoenig). Eventually
the insurance companies caved in and paid $60,000 above the actual losses. With this
money, the owners could have paid $400 dollars to the families of each victim but they
kept it for themselves. Steuer was able to convince the jury at the trial that the
testimonies from victims family members and friends were rehearsed. The socialist
newspaper Call blamed the owners saying, “It was these two bosses who made haste
to save their own precious hides by escaping to the roof, while the human beings who
piled up profits for them died in burned, crushed, and mutilated heaps” (Hoenig).
In December 1911, the company owners went to court. Charles Whitman
charged the owners with manslaughter and wrong doing. The judge on trial told the
jurors that the owners could only be found guilty if prosecutors proved that owners had
know the door was locked. They also had to prove that the deaths would have been
prevented had the door been unlocked. The jury decided that there was no sufficient
evidence to prove the two conditions true, so the owners were found not guilty. The lock
from the door was found 16 days after the fire, but Steuer questioned whether someone
had messed with it during that time.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire had a major influence on American politics, policy,
law and economics. During the trial, Ex-Fire Chief Croker testified and suggested
several laws that companies should follow: prohibit workers from carrying matches and
a strict enforcement of the rule that prohibited rubbish and flammable cotton scraps
from collecting on the floor (Lessen Factory Dangers). Public outcry led to a number of
government measure to prohibit sweatshop conditions and protect workers. This caused
widespread outrage over factory conditions and eventually led to laws protecting
workers. The New York legislature created a commission called the Factory
Commission of 1911. This was headed by Senator Robert F. Wagner, Alfred E. Smith,
and Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (Triangle
Shirtwaist Fire 1911). Additionally, the commission created the Fire Prevention Division
as part of the fire department and made restrictions to prevent fire hazards. In 1912, the
legislature passed eight labor bills recommended by the commission that addressed
sanitation, rest time, child labor, injuries on the job and work hours for women and
children. Eventually the legislature passed 25 more bills. Within three years of the fire,
over 30 new labor and safety laws were passed. Many other restrictions were made: all
doors must open outwards, no doors are to be locked during work hours, sprinklers
systems must be installed if a company employs more than 25 people above the ground
floor and fire drills are mandatory for buildings without sprinklers (Rosa). The United
States Department of Labor decided on even more standards and classified them as the
“occupations safety and health administration standards” (Triangle Fire 1911).
Now because of the fire, factories and workplaces in the United States operate
under strict labor laws determined by the government. The national Department of
Labor and each state look over all standards that dictate fair wages, safe conditions and
reasonable working hours.
How the fire started still remains a mystery. Inspectors believe that the fire
ignited from a match or cigarette that was improperly extinguished. Overall, 146 people
were killed. In the summer of 1913, Max Blanck was arrested again for locking a door
during work hours at another one of his factories. If the owners of the factory were not
so worried about preventing theft, the lives of those innocent workers could have been
saved. The site of this fire still stands and remains a monument to the lives lost that day.
The impact of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire still lives on today. Without it, who
knows where we would be in our work. We could have still been working in unsafe
factories with no safety regulations. This fire caused a revolution in history that led to
reforms still with us today.
Works Cited
Primary
"Door Was Locked at Factory Fire." New York Times. 9 December 1911. Print. From this
newspaper article, I found out that the owners of the Triangle Factory were
tried for manslaughter of the first degree. This was because of the charge
that accused them for killing Margaret Schwartz. Also, an operator for Harris
and Blanck, the owners asked them for 5,000 dollars for the loss of his
brother and he was never paid. This is a primary source because it is
directly from the trial of the owners. This source contained several firsthand
accounts from the fire given by testified workers. These accounts helped me
understand how the workers felt and how no matter how many times people
tried to open the door, it wouldn't budge.
"New York Fire Kills 148: Girl Victims Leap to Death from Factory." Chicago Sunday
Tribune. 26 March 1911: 1. Print. From this source, I learned that it was
really hard for firefighters to go into the building after the fire, not in the
physical aspect, but in the emotional aspect. It took much courage to take in
the scenes they observed. This is a primary source because it was written
the day of the fire with facts and quotes directly from the fire.
"Seek Way to Lessen Factory Dangers” - State Investigators Hear from Croker That Fire
Traps Are Now Building Here. - Article - NYTimes.com." The New York
Times. 11 October 1911. Web. 06 December 2011. <http://
query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=
F00F1EF63A5517738DDDA80994D8415B818DF1D3>. This source is a
newspaper article directly from the time period and includes the testimony
of Fire Chief Edward Croker, so it is primary. During his testimony, Croker
suggested his thoughts on how to make factories safer. These included fireprevention tools and laws that keep workers safe.
Triangle Factory Fire 1-2 (New York: A Documentary Film, Ep4).avi - YouTube. Dir.
Burns, Ric. YouTube. American Experience Special. Web. 12 January 2012.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owk_LE1GcKY>. This documentary
gives good details and firsthand accounts from the fire. The historians
interviewed in this film definitely knew what they were talking about and
supported their statements. The firsthand accounts of the fire were very
important to my project because they made me more aware of how deeply
affected the spectators were by this event. I categorized this source as
primary because of the firsthand interviews.
Secondary
DeVault, Ileen A. "Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire." World Book Advanced. 2011. Web. 6
December 2011.<http://www.worldbookonline.com/advanced/
article?id=ar752490&st=triangle+shirtwaist+factory+fire>. From this source,
I learned that the Triangle factory fire is one of the worst workplace
disasters in United States history. At the time, the company was considered
one of the most modern in the garment industry. Although so many deaths
occurred, the jury on trial decided that there was no sufficient evidence to
prove them guilty. This source gave me a better understanding of the story
of the fire and of the limited escapes the workers had.
DeVore, Veronica. "NewsHour Extra: 1911 New York Factory Fire Was Fuel for Labor
Laws | March 16, 2011 | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 31
December 2011.<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/us/jan-june11/
triangle_03-17.html>. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was the deadliest
workplace disaster in New York's history, however, it led to a series of labor
and union laws that continue to influence the workers of today. I categorized
this source as secondary because Veronica DeVore, who compiled this
article collected facts from various sources, and made it into something that
was shared on the PBS NewsHour Extra. This source helped me
understand the tough life factory workers lived, the consequences the
owners faced after the fire and how labor practices were reformed.
Hoenig Ph.D., John M. "The Triangle Fire of 1911." History Magazine. April 2005. Web.
6 December 2011. <http://www.fisheries.vims.edu/hoenig/pdfs/
Triangle.pdf>. From this secondary source, John M. Hoenig, Ph.D. taught
me that the Triangle Fire was one of the most well known fires in the history
of the US. It resulted in many economic and major political changes. The
fire retained its record for the worst workplace fire in New York City history
for 90 years, until 9/11.This is a secondary source because Dr. Hoenig was
not there at the time of the fire, so he was educated and researched about
this topic so he could write about the fire.
Linder, Doug. "Account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Trial." UMKC School of
Law. Web. 10 January 2012. <http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/
triangle/triangleaccount.html>.From this source, I learned that they have
never actually determined a cause for the fire. The police and inspectors
don't have any actual proof, so every has their assumptions. Several days
after the fire, people began looking for someone to blame. The blame was
placed on several different people/groups.
Rosa, Paul. "History Library -- The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire." HistoryBuff.com. Web. 30
December 2011. <http://www.historybuff.com/library/refshirtwaist.html>. This
source had some good information about what happened after the fire. I
learned about what happened to the dead bodies and how people reacted
to the death of so many workers. This source is secondary because it is
filled with facts that were found in other sources and was not directly from
the time period.
"This Week in History - Triangle Waist Factory Fire." Jewish Women's Archive. Web. 31
December 2011. <http://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/25/1911/triangle-fire>. This
article talks about how the Jewish community contributed to fire relief and
helped pressure New York to establish special fire laws. After the fire, the
Jewish community and women leaders for the labor movement jumped into
action and held a meeting and three days later led a funeral procession for
the seven unidentified fire victims. This is secondary because the people
who composed this post got the facts from other sources and it is not
directly from the time period.
"Triangle Fire. American Experience. WGBH | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service.
Web. 06 December 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/
films/triangle/player/>. This website gives good details on the history of the
owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and the strike that happened
before the fire. The owners were known as New York's "Shirtwaist Kings,"
who had achieved the "American Dream." They were bad people and when
their workers went on strike, they hired prostitutes and police to beat them.
This source is classified as secondary because it was not directly from
1911.
"The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911.” California State University, Northridge. Web. 30
December 2011. <http://www.csun.edu/~ghy7463/mw2.html>. I think this
source really showed how everything that could possibly go wrong at the
time of the fire, did. It also showed how advanced our time is compared to
1911. I think that is part of what makes this fire so tragic. This is a
secondary source because it is from a college, so the student who wrote
this, probably researched on the fire to write this article.
"The Uprising of 20,000 and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire." Aflcio.org - America's Union
Movement. Web. 31 December 2011. <http://www.aflcio.org/
aboutus/history/ history/uprising_fire.cfm>. This website didn't talk as much
about the fire itself as it did about what happened before and after the fire.
The life of a shirtwaist maker was very hard. They worked for many hours,
with no break, for little pay and under harsh conditions. The workers were
fed up and went on strike. After the fire, many activists pressured the
governor to sign a law creating a commission that investigated factories and
new laws were enacted. This is a secondary source because it is a
collection of facts, not from 1911 itself.
Von Drehle, David. "The Lessons of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire." Time. 26 April
2011. Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 6 December 2011.
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2061228,00.html>.
Using this secondary source, I learned that once the fire started, it spread
very quickly due to the flammable materials stored in the factory. These
included cotton, linen and tissue scraps. This event was such a big deal that
events marking the 100th anniversary have been planed across the country.
This is a secondary source because the writer of this article collected
information from other sources to write this article. It is also not directly from
the time of the fire.