![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Myria did her first freshman paper, on the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York. She worked really hard on it and it's a terrific paper. I'm not putting it here because I expect you to read it, but it is interesting and a great bit of history. Of course, it may just be a mom thing...
Triangle: The Fire of Change
The time is the early 1900s and outside the Triangle Factory on March 25, 1911, around 5:00 p.m. the girls are leaving work for the day. One girl breaks out in song, while the others are talking about their plans for the evening, not knowing that for many it is their last time laughing with their friends. The Triangle Factory is at its prime, making a blouse-like garment called a shirtwaist, basically a light shirt that goes to your waist. The shirtwaists are altered from year to year. One year there was a lot of embroidery on it, other years it was longer than usual. It was the laborers job in the Triangle Factory to sew these shirts together. Normally the factories were 'hellholes'. The girls couldn’t talk or take any breaks while working from dawn to late night for only $6.00 a week, but the girls in this factory were laughing. They enjoy their jobs because the Triangle Factory was one of the best factories to work at. There were windows for light, bathrooms, and they were allowed to talk, unlike most. Soon the factory became a memory, with only pictures, books, poems and spoken word to carry it on into the next century.
For miles the bereaved stream
under a single banner:
“We Demand Fire Protection.”
The buntings blue dye drips down
arms and faces of the honor guard,
eight of our youngest garment girls
From the tops of tenements
bending out of windows
watching us
Women, children, the old ones
lean on sashes, stare through
rain screen, down to deep street
Where white horses draped in black net
Pull an empty hearse, mountain of blossoms.
As we mach up Fifth Avenue
There they are on tops of hundreds of
buildings-structures no different from
the Asch Building and as for lacking
Fire protection, many much worse
than Triangle. It is this, not
cold rain that makes me sick.
At each curb’s turning, window-banks
empty of waving white handkerchiefs.
Thunder drums down the narrow stairways
Thousands pour to evergreen where over
the empty pits, rabbi, priest. preacher
bless the waiting coffins.
With holy water, hymns, their prayers
pronounce the placards’ numerals:
56, 50, 61, 95, 103, 115, 12
The above poem “Funeral for the Nameless” written by Chris Llewellyn (35), is just one of the many poems that came out of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the good that came out of this nightmarish fire, reinvented the labor laws, showing that the government needed to step in to protect the workers from the hazards of factory jobs. Unlike the strikes that had been organized for workers rights, which were easily ignored, the death of so many laborers demanded change.
The terrible working conditions in factories and sweatshops during the 1900s, drove determined teenage workers together, to form a strike in an effort to improve conditions. In the early 1900s, many small sweatshops closed and larger, more efficient factories opened. These factories housed vast amounts of workers in one building and had many draw backs; they were built as cheap as possible, sanitary conditions were a terrible joke, the girls – the workers were mostly girls – were treated as cattle or worse, the machines were unsafe and many workers lost their lives to these terrible machines (Cornell). The one good thing about the factories was that it made unions and strikes much easier to form (David Drehle, 48). In late September, the Union Local 25 hosted a union meeting. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, heard about it and warned the workers that anyone attending would lose their jobs but many workers went anyway. The day after the union meeting when the girls came to work they found that they were locked out of their building (49). So, they decided to strike. The strikers were horribly mistreated; they were attacked on one of the first days by prostitutes (back then called streetwalkers). When the police finally came, they only arrested the strikers. Then there were the strikebreakers, who were paid by the owners to beat up the striker's leaders. Once again the strikers were the only ones arrested. Ah! But soon the strikers got smart! They put the rich, progressive women, who had joined the cause, on the picket lines and when they got arrested, the press had a field day. The mayor didn’t like negative press coverage, so the police arrests slowed down to almost normal (50-53). On November 22, 1909, a fiery Clara Lemlich, a huge strike organizer, spoke and encouraged people to help the Triangle workers. The strike now consisted of more than 20,000 strikers. They wrote out their demands: 20% pay increase, only 52 hours of work a week, the company had to recognize and honor the union, along with over-time pay and rules of what to do in the times of no work (59). The small companies gave in to the demands, but the bigger companies banded together and refused to fold. The horrible treatment soon started again; some strikers were sent to work camps with prostitutes and other female criminals. The worst thing though was that Local 25 was running out of money. It was then that Alva Smith Vanderbit Belmont stepped in, along with the other rich women suffragists. While the rich gave lots of needed money, saved girls from jail and helped spread the word of the strike, they also forced upon the strikers the cause of suffrage, which many of the strikers did not care for. Just when victory seemed possible, some started to see the ghastly fall of it, like a dreadful out-of-control roller coaster (65-77). On December 15, 1909 during the snowstorm of the century, the strikers were out selling a special newspaper called Strike Extra that told about the strike and the fact that the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory had shut down. While the strikers were in the freezing cold, the strike leaders were inside turning down any compromising negotiations. That’s what started the free fall. The rich thought that the leaders were too radical and the strikers figured that the rich didn't understand. After that day, the strikers slowly settled with individual companies until everyone was forced back to work (77-86). It wasn’t until a terrible event happened about a year later that the fires were rekindled in those that had fought for workers rights and forced every one to question as to what is really safe.
"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". William Sheperd of the United Press started his story with that statement (Leon Stein, 19). He, like so many others, was at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911, 4:46 p.m., when a fire under a cutter’s table on the eighth floor, started the most horrific event of that century, taking the lives of 146 young people, the majority being girls. The fire only lasted about 30 minutes, but for all involved it seemed like an eternity. When the first girl jumped out of a ninth- story window, the bystanders’ thought it was good cloth that the owner threw out the window in order to save. They were terrified to find that it was a girl. When the fire department got there they tried to raise the ladder, but when it was fully extended the ladder only went up to the sixth floor. The Triangle Factory fire was on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. More terrified girls jumped. The fire department tried to hold out nets to save the falling girls, but the girls didn’t just jump, they jumped together, clinging to each other in groups of twos, threes, or even fours. The nets were just as useless as the ladders. The girls fell completely through the sidewalk. No net could stop that. When the fire hoses started, the water in the gutters looked like it ran with the blood of the fallen. The horses had to be let go for the smell and sound of that much death terrified them. In the end, no one could do much for the trapped youth, the fire was too intense to fight from within and the ladders and nets were useless (11-21). All they could do was shoot water to the top floor and try to put it out.
At about 4:46 pm, on the eighth floor, Eva Harris saw flames under the cutter’s table which had several months of scraps – about 2,000 pounds of fabric and tissue paper – piled under the table. A bomb wouldn't have caused as much damage. The workers tried using the water hose, but there was no pressure. Then they tried using water buckets, but by then the fire had engulfed all the cutters’ tables. While this was happening, Dinah Lifschitz warned the tenth floor but couldn't get back down to warn the ninth floor. By then, the fire was even bigger and some girls started jumping. The doors didn't open. No one knows why. Some reports said they were locked, others said they were just jammed. It doesn’t matter; most couldn’t get out (33-42). The tenth floor had few workers for it was the office floor where the two owners entertained clients and conducted business. That day Blanck’s two kids were there but were luckily saved by an employee. When everyone saw that they couldn't go down, Isaac Harris stopped the panic and led the way to the roof (43-46). Some made it to the roof through extraordinary stunts. Ida Nelson wrapped yards and yards of fabric around herself and ran in to the flames; as the cloth burned she unwrapped it. She made it to the roof with only a burned arm (59-60). When they got to the roof they looked for a way off, and most escaped by using ladders or climbing across to the neighboring buildings. However some – like Joseph Flecher – could only see the death (46-50). He later said, "I looked down the whole height of the building. My people were sticking out of the windows. I saw my girls, my pretty ones, going down through the air. They hit the sidewalk spread out and still" (47). On the ninth floor there was total panic as no one took charge. The workers split into several groups. Some girls jammed against the elevator. These were probably the luckiest. Joseph Zito, the elevator operator, packed the elevator with as many girls as he could possibly fit, risking his life for others (The Post-Standard, Elevator Boy A Hero). But he couldn't save everyone. There were those that jumped, having to choose between falling or burning to death. There were those that pressed against the doors – doors that had to open inwardly – so the people pressing against it locked it shut as efficiently as a deadbolt. Others went to the fire escape not knowing it was a death trap. Some just panicked and ran around or froze in place (51-60). There were many miracle saves that day, like people living through nine-story falls or terrible burns. Stories of people finding family they thought were dead. But for every happy ending, there were many horrendous stories that ended with death.
Though the fire was hideous, it only lasted about thirty minutes. The effects of the grizzly cleanup and the terrible loss of so many lives resonated through the city for months – sometimes years – after the event. After the fire was over it seemed the city emptied and came to the Triangle Factory. Some just wanted to see the disaster, but most were people looking for their family members who worked at the factory; children, husbands, wives, all were feared to be dead. The police had their hands full keeping back the grief-crazed mothers, while the fire fighters laid out the bodies (73-75). Inside the Triangle Factory, it was a black charred nightmare, like a demented haunted house. When the cleaners came, they had to watch where they walked otherwise they would step into the mush of the charred bodies that littered the floor. They thought they had one floor cleared until someone looked in to a small closet. Three bodies were crammed in there as if no one wanted to die alone (76-77). When the firefighters went out to the back alley, they found girls covering the ground and some even impaled on the surrounding wall. Then they saw the twisted melted fire escape. It had been blocked making it a death trap for all who went on it (77-80). While the firefighters cleaned up and removed the bodies, the nurses and doctors searched the fallen bodies for a small flicker of life. When they found it, they would get the person to the hospital as fast as they could but the victim usually died on the trip (74-76). Every time the crowd saw another girl lowered or put in to the ambulance, they surged forward, sometimes breaking the fragile police lines. When this happened, mothers would run forward and look at the things found with the bodies and wailed when they thought they found something that was their child's (75). The crowd was about 10,000 strong when the last body was lowered and shipped off in a reused coffin to the make shift morgue. The city wasn't prepared for that many casualties; they didn't have enough room or coffins (81-86). The morgue was moved to Manhattan Charities Pier for the local morgue was too small. The morning after the fire, a long line of mourners and, sadly, sightseers formed outside of the pier. Only about twenty-five were allowed in at a time and there was a nurse to watch each one of them, for some mothers tried to kill themselves. Most women fainted, and some men had total breakdowns. The twenty-five would walk along trying to find a belonging that was the victims or to see if corpses still looked like the girl they had known. When the body was identified the coffin would be marked with the name and shipped to a place of storage until the body could be buried (The Post Standard, Besiege the Morgue). The Red Cross, finding out that the girls who had died were usually the soul bread winners for their families, made it their job to help these families. They gave them just enough money for the families to get by. They soon found that their “getting by” was so much better than how the families were before. The Red Cross found that they could afford to help the families with everything from the funerals to helping family members across the sea (Leon Stien, 122-132). A week after the fire there where still seven unidentified bodies, one of which would be identified later. The Local 25 decided that on April 5, 1911 they would have a joint funeral for the unidentified and a memorial for all that died. Many workers in black clothes walked along beside the flower-filled wagons and cars. Many more women marched behind. On that rain-filled day not one girl hid from the rain. They all walked as if it was the last thing they would ever do. As they passed house after house, more and more people joined, either the procession or the army of umbrellas that watched. When this sad parade came in sight of the cause of all this despair, the ASCH building, the marchers let out a wail. That sound was described in the newspaper “American” as "one long drawn out, heart-piercing cry, the mingling of thousands of voices, a sort of human thunder in the elemental storm – a cry that was perhaps the most impressive expression of human grief ever heard in this city" (152-153). The fire was fast and destructive, but the mourning and grief drew the people of New York together, past the boundaries of culture, race, gender, and status, which had been in place for hundreds of years, to make sure that no other generation had to live though the pain this one did.
After the fire, people called for reform in the factories. They turned to the state government to enact new laws. The old laws, as they stood, were unacceptable. The Triangle Company broke no laws but the conditions were horrible, nonetheless. Here are some of the rules: by law, if the structure was 150 feet tall or more, it needed metal trim on the windows and stone or concrete floors. The ASCH building was 135 feet so it could have everything wooden. If the floor was 10,000 - 15,000 sq. ft., it needed three staircases. The ASCH building only had two but since fire escapes were not required, it counted as a staircase. There were no laws that the door had to open outward or that fire drills must be practiced (Linder, Douglas). There was a meeting a couple of weeks after the fire, which was the first of its kind. It wasn't just for the working class but the rich came too, to talk about what might be done or what could be done. Most of the speakers just babbled not really saying anything; some blaming others, some saying it wasn't their fault, others pleading caution and still others calling for full rebellion. After a couple of hour’s discussion, the crowd was not happy and was starting to implode. It was then Rose Schneiderman walked to the podium, slowly, like she had the world on her back. She spoke in a voice barely audible but loud with feeling. She spoke of her pain – the pain of seeing the girls she had led on a strike bloodied and arrested and now charred and dead. She had the crowd enthralled. Rose talked about the passion she felt to change the laws and the distrust, even hate, for all that had left her girls stranded in the middle of the strike. She walked back to her seat leaving a stunned but determined crowd. That gathering started the train that would plow through and change every thing (141-145). But whose fault was it? The court later said it wasn't the owners fault. So was it the architects, the builders, the cutters, the fire departments or was it the people’s for ignoring the strike? Lillian D. Wald summed up most eloquently whose fault it was when she said; "The conditions as they now exist are hideous and damnable. Our investigations have shown that there are hundreds of buildings which invite disaster just as much as did the ASCH structure. The crux of the situation is that there is no direct responsibility. Divided, always divided! The responsibility rests nowhere!” (121). The people couldn’t blame anyone, so they demanded change. New York did several things but the best thing was the creation of the Factory Investigation Commission (FIC). It was separate from the rest of the government and it alone decided what it would do. The FIC decided to do its job and do it well. It created eight new laws in 1911, twenty-five the next year, and three the following. They also inspected 1,836 buildings the first year. They inspected the factories differently than the inspectors of the past. Unlike before, these inspectors came at odd, unscheduled times and didn't warn the owners what they would be looking for, so the owners couldn't hide it. They scrutinized every corner and crack, they went into the deepest, dirtiest, slimiest places to find out what was really wrong and they fined every single owner that violated any of the new labor laws (they couldn't be bought). The FIC were the ones that got the people’s wishes turned into reality (207-211). It turned out that thanks to the FIC, the girls that died in that Triangle Shirtwaist Factory didn't die meaninglessly. Their tragedy jumpstarted the changes that saved millions.
The story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire has mostly faded in to the past. Few people even know about Triangle Fire and even the ones that do usually only know about the people that died. Even though the 169 that died didn’t want to, in some ways they had the easier road. With this loaded statement, this paper is not only dedicated to the still unknown #46, #50, #61, #95, #103, #115 and #127, but to the ones who fought for the change, the ones who didn’t get the recognition the dead did. For their struggle didn't end on March 25, 1911; their struggle with the pain of the deaths and with changing the laws didn't abate for many years. Their efforts in making the workplace safe is responsible for most, if not all, of the new, safer labor laws that protect workers to this day. It would be nice to say that such a terrible event could never happen again, but, sadly, it usually takes a tragedy to make people really see and understand what is going on. The Triangle Fire started the struggle to make workers safe and that struggle still has not ended.
Works Cited
Drehle, David V. Triangle the Fire that Changed America. New York,Grove/Alantic, 2003.
The Kheel Center, Catherwood Library, The Triangle Factory Fire. 2005. 19 Mar. 2008.
Linder, Douglas.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial. 2002. 24 Mar. 2008
Llewellyn, Chris. Fragments from the Fire. New York, Viking Penguin, 1987
The Post-Standard. Syracuse, N.Y. 27 Mar 1911: 1-2. Access Neewspaper Archieve. 2008. 27 Mar. 2008.
Stein, Leon. The Triangle Fire. New York, Cornell Univ, 2001.
Triangle: The Fire of Change
The time is the early 1900s and outside the Triangle Factory on March 25, 1911, around 5:00 p.m. the girls are leaving work for the day. One girl breaks out in song, while the others are talking about their plans for the evening, not knowing that for many it is their last time laughing with their friends. The Triangle Factory is at its prime, making a blouse-like garment called a shirtwaist, basically a light shirt that goes to your waist. The shirtwaists are altered from year to year. One year there was a lot of embroidery on it, other years it was longer than usual. It was the laborers job in the Triangle Factory to sew these shirts together. Normally the factories were 'hellholes'. The girls couldn’t talk or take any breaks while working from dawn to late night for only $6.00 a week, but the girls in this factory were laughing. They enjoy their jobs because the Triangle Factory was one of the best factories to work at. There were windows for light, bathrooms, and they were allowed to talk, unlike most. Soon the factory became a memory, with only pictures, books, poems and spoken word to carry it on into the next century.
under a single banner:
“We Demand Fire Protection.”
The buntings blue dye drips down
arms and faces of the honor guard,
eight of our youngest garment girls
From the tops of tenements
bending out of windows
watching us
Women, children, the old ones
lean on sashes, stare through
rain screen, down to deep street
Where white horses draped in black net
Pull an empty hearse, mountain of blossoms.
As we mach up Fifth Avenue
There they are on tops of hundreds of
buildings-structures no different from
the Asch Building and as for lacking
Fire protection, many much worse
than Triangle. It is this, not
cold rain that makes me sick.
At each curb’s turning, window-banks
empty of waving white handkerchiefs.
Thunder drums down the narrow stairways
Thousands pour to evergreen where over
the empty pits, rabbi, priest. preacher
bless the waiting coffins.
With holy water, hymns, their prayers
pronounce the placards’ numerals:
56, 50, 61, 95, 103, 115, 12
The above poem “Funeral for the Nameless” written by Chris Llewellyn (35), is just one of the many poems that came out of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the good that came out of this nightmarish fire, reinvented the labor laws, showing that the government needed to step in to protect the workers from the hazards of factory jobs. Unlike the strikes that had been organized for workers rights, which were easily ignored, the death of so many laborers demanded change.
The terrible working conditions in factories and sweatshops during the 1900s, drove determined teenage workers together, to form a strike in an effort to improve conditions. In the early 1900s, many small sweatshops closed and larger, more efficient factories opened. These factories housed vast amounts of workers in one building and had many draw backs; they were built as cheap as possible, sanitary conditions were a terrible joke, the girls – the workers were mostly girls – were treated as cattle or worse, the machines were unsafe and many workers lost their lives to these terrible machines (Cornell). The one good thing about the factories was that it made unions and strikes much easier to form (David Drehle, 48). In late September, the Union Local 25 hosted a union meeting. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, heard about it and warned the workers that anyone attending would lose their jobs but many workers went anyway. The day after the union meeting when the girls came to work they found that they were locked out of their building (49). So, they decided to strike. The strikers were horribly mistreated; they were attacked on one of the first days by prostitutes (back then called streetwalkers). When the police finally came, they only arrested the strikers. Then there were the strikebreakers, who were paid by the owners to beat up the striker's leaders. Once again the strikers were the only ones arrested. Ah! But soon the strikers got smart! They put the rich, progressive women, who had joined the cause, on the picket lines and when they got arrested, the press had a field day. The mayor didn’t like negative press coverage, so the police arrests slowed down to almost normal (50-53). On November 22, 1909, a fiery Clara Lemlich, a huge strike organizer, spoke and encouraged people to help the Triangle workers. The strike now consisted of more than 20,000 strikers. They wrote out their demands: 20% pay increase, only 52 hours of work a week, the company had to recognize and honor the union, along with over-time pay and rules of what to do in the times of no work (59). The small companies gave in to the demands, but the bigger companies banded together and refused to fold. The horrible treatment soon started again; some strikers were sent to work camps with prostitutes and other female criminals. The worst thing though was that Local 25 was running out of money. It was then that Alva Smith Vanderbit Belmont stepped in, along with the other rich women suffragists. While the rich gave lots of needed money, saved girls from jail and helped spread the word of the strike, they also forced upon the strikers the cause of suffrage, which many of the strikers did not care for. Just when victory seemed possible, some started to see the ghastly fall of it, like a dreadful out-of-control roller coaster (65-77). On December 15, 1909 during the snowstorm of the century, the strikers were out selling a special newspaper called Strike Extra that told about the strike and the fact that the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory had shut down. While the strikers were in the freezing cold, the strike leaders were inside turning down any compromising negotiations. That’s what started the free fall. The rich thought that the leaders were too radical and the strikers figured that the rich didn't understand. After that day, the strikers slowly settled with individual companies until everyone was forced back to work (77-86). It wasn’t until a terrible event happened about a year later that the fires were rekindled in those that had fought for workers rights and forced every one to question as to what is really safe.
"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". William Sheperd of the United Press started his story with that statement (Leon Stein, 19). He, like so many others, was at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911, 4:46 p.m., when a fire under a cutter’s table on the eighth floor, started the most horrific event of that century, taking the lives of 146 young people, the majority being girls. The fire only lasted about 30 minutes, but for all involved it seemed like an eternity. When the first girl jumped out of a ninth- story window, the bystanders’ thought it was good cloth that the owner threw out the window in order to save. They were terrified to find that it was a girl. When the fire department got there they tried to raise the ladder, but when it was fully extended the ladder only went up to the sixth floor. The Triangle Factory fire was on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. More terrified girls jumped. The fire department tried to hold out nets to save the falling girls, but the girls didn’t just jump, they jumped together, clinging to each other in groups of twos, threes, or even fours. The nets were just as useless as the ladders. The girls fell completely through the sidewalk. No net could stop that. When the fire hoses started, the water in the gutters looked like it ran with the blood of the fallen. The horses had to be let go for the smell and sound of that much death terrified them. In the end, no one could do much for the trapped youth, the fire was too intense to fight from within and the ladders and nets were useless (11-21). All they could do was shoot water to the top floor and try to put it out.
At about 4:46 pm, on the eighth floor, Eva Harris saw flames under the cutter’s table which had several months of scraps – about 2,000 pounds of fabric and tissue paper – piled under the table. A bomb wouldn't have caused as much damage. The workers tried using the water hose, but there was no pressure. Then they tried using water buckets, but by then the fire had engulfed all the cutters’ tables. While this was happening, Dinah Lifschitz warned the tenth floor but couldn't get back down to warn the ninth floor. By then, the fire was even bigger and some girls started jumping. The doors didn't open. No one knows why. Some reports said they were locked, others said they were just jammed. It doesn’t matter; most couldn’t get out (33-42). The tenth floor had few workers for it was the office floor where the two owners entertained clients and conducted business. That day Blanck’s two kids were there but were luckily saved by an employee. When everyone saw that they couldn't go down, Isaac Harris stopped the panic and led the way to the roof (43-46). Some made it to the roof through extraordinary stunts. Ida Nelson wrapped yards and yards of fabric around herself and ran in to the flames; as the cloth burned she unwrapped it. She made it to the roof with only a burned arm (59-60). When they got to the roof they looked for a way off, and most escaped by using ladders or climbing across to the neighboring buildings. However some – like Joseph Flecher – could only see the death (46-50). He later said, "I looked down the whole height of the building. My people were sticking out of the windows. I saw my girls, my pretty ones, going down through the air. They hit the sidewalk spread out and still" (47). On the ninth floor there was total panic as no one took charge. The workers split into several groups. Some girls jammed against the elevator. These were probably the luckiest. Joseph Zito, the elevator operator, packed the elevator with as many girls as he could possibly fit, risking his life for others (The Post-Standard, Elevator Boy A Hero). But he couldn't save everyone. There were those that jumped, having to choose between falling or burning to death. There were those that pressed against the doors – doors that had to open inwardly – so the people pressing against it locked it shut as efficiently as a deadbolt. Others went to the fire escape not knowing it was a death trap. Some just panicked and ran around or froze in place (51-60). There were many miracle saves that day, like people living through nine-story falls or terrible burns. Stories of people finding family they thought were dead. But for every happy ending, there were many horrendous stories that ended with death.
Though the fire was hideous, it only lasted about thirty minutes. The effects of the grizzly cleanup and the terrible loss of so many lives resonated through the city for months – sometimes years – after the event. After the fire was over it seemed the city emptied and came to the Triangle Factory. Some just wanted to see the disaster, but most were people looking for their family members who worked at the factory; children, husbands, wives, all were feared to be dead. The police had their hands full keeping back the grief-crazed mothers, while the fire fighters laid out the bodies (73-75). Inside the Triangle Factory, it was a black charred nightmare, like a demented haunted house. When the cleaners came, they had to watch where they walked otherwise they would step into the mush of the charred bodies that littered the floor. They thought they had one floor cleared until someone looked in to a small closet. Three bodies were crammed in there as if no one wanted to die alone (76-77). When the firefighters went out to the back alley, they found girls covering the ground and some even impaled on the surrounding wall. Then they saw the twisted melted fire escape. It had been blocked making it a death trap for all who went on it (77-80). While the firefighters cleaned up and removed the bodies, the nurses and doctors searched the fallen bodies for a small flicker of life. When they found it, they would get the person to the hospital as fast as they could but the victim usually died on the trip (74-76). Every time the crowd saw another girl lowered or put in to the ambulance, they surged forward, sometimes breaking the fragile police lines. When this happened, mothers would run forward and look at the things found with the bodies and wailed when they thought they found something that was their child's (75). The crowd was about 10,000 strong when the last body was lowered and shipped off in a reused coffin to the make shift morgue. The city wasn't prepared for that many casualties; they didn't have enough room or coffins (81-86). The morgue was moved to Manhattan Charities Pier for the local morgue was too small. The morning after the fire, a long line of mourners and, sadly, sightseers formed outside of the pier. Only about twenty-five were allowed in at a time and there was a nurse to watch each one of them, for some mothers tried to kill themselves. Most women fainted, and some men had total breakdowns. The twenty-five would walk along trying to find a belonging that was the victims or to see if corpses still looked like the girl they had known. When the body was identified the coffin would be marked with the name and shipped to a place of storage until the body could be buried (The Post Standard, Besiege the Morgue). The Red Cross, finding out that the girls who had died were usually the soul bread winners for their families, made it their job to help these families. They gave them just enough money for the families to get by. They soon found that their “getting by” was so much better than how the families were before. The Red Cross found that they could afford to help the families with everything from the funerals to helping family members across the sea (Leon Stien, 122-132). A week after the fire there where still seven unidentified bodies, one of which would be identified later. The Local 25 decided that on April 5, 1911 they would have a joint funeral for the unidentified and a memorial for all that died. Many workers in black clothes walked along beside the flower-filled wagons and cars. Many more women marched behind. On that rain-filled day not one girl hid from the rain. They all walked as if it was the last thing they would ever do. As they passed house after house, more and more people joined, either the procession or the army of umbrellas that watched. When this sad parade came in sight of the cause of all this despair, the ASCH building, the marchers let out a wail. That sound was described in the newspaper “American” as "one long drawn out, heart-piercing cry, the mingling of thousands of voices, a sort of human thunder in the elemental storm – a cry that was perhaps the most impressive expression of human grief ever heard in this city" (152-153). The fire was fast and destructive, but the mourning and grief drew the people of New York together, past the boundaries of culture, race, gender, and status, which had been in place for hundreds of years, to make sure that no other generation had to live though the pain this one did.
After the fire, people called for reform in the factories. They turned to the state government to enact new laws. The old laws, as they stood, were unacceptable. The Triangle Company broke no laws but the conditions were horrible, nonetheless. Here are some of the rules: by law, if the structure was 150 feet tall or more, it needed metal trim on the windows and stone or concrete floors. The ASCH building was 135 feet so it could have everything wooden. If the floor was 10,000 - 15,000 sq. ft., it needed three staircases. The ASCH building only had two but since fire escapes were not required, it counted as a staircase. There were no laws that the door had to open outward or that fire drills must be practiced (Linder, Douglas). There was a meeting a couple of weeks after the fire, which was the first of its kind. It wasn't just for the working class but the rich came too, to talk about what might be done or what could be done. Most of the speakers just babbled not really saying anything; some blaming others, some saying it wasn't their fault, others pleading caution and still others calling for full rebellion. After a couple of hour’s discussion, the crowd was not happy and was starting to implode. It was then Rose Schneiderman walked to the podium, slowly, like she had the world on her back. She spoke in a voice barely audible but loud with feeling. She spoke of her pain – the pain of seeing the girls she had led on a strike bloodied and arrested and now charred and dead. She had the crowd enthralled. Rose talked about the passion she felt to change the laws and the distrust, even hate, for all that had left her girls stranded in the middle of the strike. She walked back to her seat leaving a stunned but determined crowd. That gathering started the train that would plow through and change every thing (141-145). But whose fault was it? The court later said it wasn't the owners fault. So was it the architects, the builders, the cutters, the fire departments or was it the people’s for ignoring the strike? Lillian D. Wald summed up most eloquently whose fault it was when she said; "The conditions as they now exist are hideous and damnable. Our investigations have shown that there are hundreds of buildings which invite disaster just as much as did the ASCH structure. The crux of the situation is that there is no direct responsibility. Divided, always divided! The responsibility rests nowhere!” (121). The people couldn’t blame anyone, so they demanded change. New York did several things but the best thing was the creation of the Factory Investigation Commission (FIC). It was separate from the rest of the government and it alone decided what it would do. The FIC decided to do its job and do it well. It created eight new laws in 1911, twenty-five the next year, and three the following. They also inspected 1,836 buildings the first year. They inspected the factories differently than the inspectors of the past. Unlike before, these inspectors came at odd, unscheduled times and didn't warn the owners what they would be looking for, so the owners couldn't hide it. They scrutinized every corner and crack, they went into the deepest, dirtiest, slimiest places to find out what was really wrong and they fined every single owner that violated any of the new labor laws (they couldn't be bought). The FIC were the ones that got the people’s wishes turned into reality (207-211). It turned out that thanks to the FIC, the girls that died in that Triangle Shirtwaist Factory didn't die meaninglessly. Their tragedy jumpstarted the changes that saved millions.
The story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire has mostly faded in to the past. Few people even know about Triangle Fire and even the ones that do usually only know about the people that died. Even though the 169 that died didn’t want to, in some ways they had the easier road. With this loaded statement, this paper is not only dedicated to the still unknown #46, #50, #61, #95, #103, #115 and #127, but to the ones who fought for the change, the ones who didn’t get the recognition the dead did. For their struggle didn't end on March 25, 1911; their struggle with the pain of the deaths and with changing the laws didn't abate for many years. Their efforts in making the workplace safe is responsible for most, if not all, of the new, safer labor laws that protect workers to this day. It would be nice to say that such a terrible event could never happen again, but, sadly, it usually takes a tragedy to make people really see and understand what is going on. The Triangle Fire started the struggle to make workers safe and that struggle still has not ended.
Works Cited
Drehle, David V. Triangle the Fire that Changed America. New York,Grove/Alantic, 2003.
The Kheel Center, Catherwood Library, The Triangle Factory Fire. 2005. 19 Mar. 2008.
Linder, Douglas.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial. 2002. 24 Mar. 2008
Llewellyn, Chris. Fragments from the Fire. New York, Viking Penguin, 1987
The Post-Standard. Syracuse, N.Y. 27 Mar 1911: 1-2. Access Neewspaper Archieve. 2008. 27 Mar. 2008.
Stein, Leon. The Triangle Fire. New York, Cornell Univ, 2001.
