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On this day, March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire happened.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
Date: March 25, 1911
Time: 4:40 p.m. (Eastern Time)
Location: Asch Building, Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
Coordinates: 40°43′48″N 73°59′43″W
Deaths: 146
Non-fatal injuries: 78
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and girls and 23 men – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling/jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese.
The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, at 23–29 Washington Place, near Washington Square Park. The 1901 building still stands today and is now known as the Brown Building. It is part of and owned by New York University.
Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked (a then-common practice to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft), many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.
The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.
{snip}
Date: March 25, 1911
Time: 4:40 p.m. (Eastern Time)
Location: Asch Building, Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
Coordinates: 40°43′48″N 73°59′43″W
Deaths: 146
Non-fatal injuries: 78
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and girls and 23 men – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling/jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese.
The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, at 23–29 Washington Place, near Washington Square Park. The 1901 building still stands today and is now known as the Brown Building. It is part of and owned by New York University.
Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked (a then-common practice to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft), many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.
The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.
{snip}
12 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
POLITICS
How the First Woman in the U.S. Cabinet Found Her Vocation
Frances Perkins discovered her calling after she witnessed one of the worst industrial disasters in American history.
DAVID BROOKS
APRIL 14, 2015
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
On March 25, 1911, Mrs. Gordon Norrie was just sitting down to tea with a group of friends when they heard a commotion outside. One of her guests, Frances Perkins, then thirty-one, was from an old but middle-class Maine family, which could trace its lineage back to the time of the Revolution. She had attended Mount Holyoke College and was working at the Consumers’ League of New York, lobbying to end child labor. Perkins spoke in the upper-crust tones befitting her upbringing—like Margaret Dumont in the old Marx Brothers movies or Mrs. Thurston Howell III—with long flat a’s, dropped r’s, and rounded vowels, “tomaahhhto” for “tomato.”
Some saw what they thought were bundles of fabric falling from the windows. They thought the factory owners were saving their best material. As the bundles continued to fall, the onlookers realized they were not bundles at all. They were people, hurling themselves to their death. “People had just begun to jump as we got there,” Perkins would later remember. “They had been holding on until that time, standing in the windowsills, being crowded by others behind them, the fire pressing closer and closer, the smoke closer and closer."
“They began to jump. The window was too crowded and they would jump and they hit the sidewalk,” she recalled. “Every one of them was killed, everybody who jumped was killed. It was a horrifying spectacle.” ... The firemen held out nets, but the weight of the bodies from that great height either yanked the nets from the firemen’s hands or the bodies ripped right through. One woman grandly emptied her purse over the onlookers below and then hurled herself off.
Perkins and the others screamed up to them, “Don’t jump! Help is coming.” It wasn’t. The flames were roasting them from behind. Forty-seven people ended up jumping. One young woman gave a speech before diving, gesticulating passionately, but no one could hear her. One young man tenderly helped a young woman onto the windowsill. Then he held her out, away from the building, like a ballet dancer, and let her drop. He did the same for a second and a third. Finally, a fourth girl stood on the windowsill; she embraced him and they shared a long kiss. Then he held her out and dropped her, too. Then he himself was in the air. As he fell, people noticed, as his pants ballooned out, that he wore smart tan shoes. One reporter wrote, “I saw his face before they covered it. You could see in it that he was a real man. He had done his best.”
{snip}
How the First Woman in the U.S. Cabinet Found Her Vocation
Frances Perkins discovered her calling after she witnessed one of the worst industrial disasters in American history.
DAVID BROOKS
APRIL 14, 2015
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
On March 25, 1911, Mrs. Gordon Norrie was just sitting down to tea with a group of friends when they heard a commotion outside. One of her guests, Frances Perkins, then thirty-one, was from an old but middle-class Maine family, which could trace its lineage back to the time of the Revolution. She had attended Mount Holyoke College and was working at the Consumers’ League of New York, lobbying to end child labor. Perkins spoke in the upper-crust tones befitting her upbringing—like Margaret Dumont in the old Marx Brothers movies or Mrs. Thurston Howell III—with long flat a’s, dropped r’s, and rounded vowels, “tomaahhhto” for “tomato.”
Some saw what they thought were bundles of fabric falling from the windows. They thought the factory owners were saving their best material. As the bundles continued to fall, the onlookers realized they were not bundles at all. They were people, hurling themselves to their death. “People had just begun to jump as we got there,” Perkins would later remember. “They had been holding on until that time, standing in the windowsills, being crowded by others behind them, the fire pressing closer and closer, the smoke closer and closer."
“They began to jump. The window was too crowded and they would jump and they hit the sidewalk,” she recalled. “Every one of them was killed, everybody who jumped was killed. It was a horrifying spectacle.” ... The firemen held out nets, but the weight of the bodies from that great height either yanked the nets from the firemen’s hands or the bodies ripped right through. One woman grandly emptied her purse over the onlookers below and then hurled herself off.
Perkins and the others screamed up to them, “Don’t jump! Help is coming.” It wasn’t. The flames were roasting them from behind. Forty-seven people ended up jumping. One young woman gave a speech before diving, gesticulating passionately, but no one could hear her. One young man tenderly helped a young woman onto the windowsill. Then he held her out, away from the building, like a ballet dancer, and let her drop. He did the same for a second and a third. Finally, a fourth girl stood on the windowsill; she embraced him and they shared a long kiss. Then he held her out and dropped her, too. Then he himself was in the air. As he fell, people noticed, as his pants ballooned out, that he wore smart tan shoes. One reporter wrote, “I saw his face before they covered it. You could see in it that he was a real man. He had done his best.”
{snip}
This article from American Heritage in 1957 was my first exposure to the fire. Near the end, it says, "men like Alfred E. Smith, Robert F. Wagner, Sr., and Franklin D. Roosevelt learned how to coalesce these groups into an effective political force." Frances Perkins isn't mentioned. Not even once.
The Terrible Triangle Fire
The tragedy that trapped and killed 146 employees started small but made a big mark in history
Tom Brooks
August 1957 | Volume 8 Issue 5
Most fires start small; few are chosen to make an impact on history. The tragic Triangle Waist Company fire, which consumed 146 lives, most of them young girls, on March 25, 1911, was one of the latter. The fire, which swept the top three floors of the ten-story Asch building—now the Brown building of New York University—one block east of Washington Square on the northwest corner of Washington Place and Greene Street in New York City, acted as a catalyst on social reform. The Triangle tragedy brought together the Progressive reformer, the social worker, the urban trade unions, and Tammany behind a demand for factory legislation, thereby giving birth to a voting complex that ultimately helped to shape the New Deal.
{snip}
The fire acted as a catalyst: Tammany learned that there were votes to be had from support of social reform; the unions and urban working people found out how much could be gained through legislation and how best to use their votes to secure reform measures; the Progressive reformer and social worker discovered that progress could be made through cooperation with the urban political machines. And men like Alfred E. Smith, Robert F. Wagner, Sr., and Franklin D. Roosevelt learned how to coalesce these groups into an effective political force.
One of the last girls to jump from the Triangle Waist Company window ledges was Sallie Weintraub. “For a minute,” an eyewitness said, “she held her hands rigid, her face upward, looking toward the sky.” The window in which she stood was etched in little tongues of flames. One licked out, touched her dress, and it began to burn. But, before she jumped, “she began to raise her arms and make gestures as if she were addressing a crowd above her.”
What she was saying, we will never know. But her mute appeal, to wrest right from wrong, has not gone unanswered.
The tragedy that trapped and killed 146 employees started small but made a big mark in history
Tom Brooks
August 1957 | Volume 8 Issue 5
Most fires start small; few are chosen to make an impact on history. The tragic Triangle Waist Company fire, which consumed 146 lives, most of them young girls, on March 25, 1911, was one of the latter. The fire, which swept the top three floors of the ten-story Asch building—now the Brown building of New York University—one block east of Washington Square on the northwest corner of Washington Place and Greene Street in New York City, acted as a catalyst on social reform. The Triangle tragedy brought together the Progressive reformer, the social worker, the urban trade unions, and Tammany behind a demand for factory legislation, thereby giving birth to a voting complex that ultimately helped to shape the New Deal.
{snip}
The fire acted as a catalyst: Tammany learned that there were votes to be had from support of social reform; the unions and urban working people found out how much could be gained through legislation and how best to use their votes to secure reform measures; the Progressive reformer and social worker discovered that progress could be made through cooperation with the urban political machines. And men like Alfred E. Smith, Robert F. Wagner, Sr., and Franklin D. Roosevelt learned how to coalesce these groups into an effective political force.
One of the last girls to jump from the Triangle Waist Company window ledges was Sallie Weintraub. “For a minute,” an eyewitness said, “she held her hands rigid, her face upward, looking toward the sky.” The window in which she stood was etched in little tongues of flames. One licked out, touched her dress, and it began to burn. But, before she jumped, “she began to raise her arms and make gestures as if she were addressing a crowd above her.”
What she was saying, we will never know. But her mute appeal, to wrest right from wrong, has not gone unanswered.
Wed Mar 25, 2015: Happy Land, Triangle Shirtwaist fires happened same day, 79 years apart
Ten years ago, on the 100th anniversary of the fire, I read David Von Drehle's book.
Pieces of History
A Factory Fire and Frances Perkins
March 25, 2011 By Jrobison, Posted In - Great Depression, - Women's Rights, News And Events, Rare Photos
Demonstration of protest and mourning for Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911, By an unknown photographer, New York City, New York, April 5, 1911; General Records of the Department of Labor; Record Group 174; National Archives.
Today marks 100 years since the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire—a blaze that lasted 18 minutes and left 146 workers dead.
Among the many in New York City who witnessed the tragedy was Frances Perkins, who would later become FDR’s Secretary of Labor, making her the first woman to serve in a Presidential cabinet.
As Secretary of Labor, Perkins was instrumental in creating and implementing the Social Security Act—but she was also intensely interested in the safety and rights of workers. “I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain common workingmen,” she said.
Perkins had a degree from Mount Holyoke College, where her coursework included touring factories. She later earned a master’s degree in in social economics from Columbia University. She had been working as factory inspector in New York at the time of the fire.
The fire started in a wastebasket on the eighth floor, and the flames jumped up onto the paper patterns that were hanging from the ceiling.
{snip}
A Factory Fire and Frances Perkins
March 25, 2011 By Jrobison, Posted In - Great Depression, - Women's Rights, News And Events, Rare Photos
Demonstration of protest and mourning for Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911, By an unknown photographer, New York City, New York, April 5, 1911; General Records of the Department of Labor; Record Group 174; National Archives.
Today marks 100 years since the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire—a blaze that lasted 18 minutes and left 146 workers dead.
Among the many in New York City who witnessed the tragedy was Frances Perkins, who would later become FDR’s Secretary of Labor, making her the first woman to serve in a Presidential cabinet.
As Secretary of Labor, Perkins was instrumental in creating and implementing the Social Security Act—but she was also intensely interested in the safety and rights of workers. “I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain common workingmen,” she said.
Perkins had a degree from Mount Holyoke College, where her coursework included touring factories. She later earned a master’s degree in in social economics from Columbia University. She had been working as factory inspector in New York at the time of the fire.
The fire started in a wastebasket on the eighth floor, and the flames jumped up onto the paper patterns that were hanging from the ceiling.
{snip}
