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Did The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Change The Relationship Between Labor And Industry?

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On a crisp spring morning on March 25th, 1911, young girls and women gathered together to start their normal work routine. Little did the young women know that their lives would be changed forever. Alex Blanck and Isaac Harris, who were tailors from Europe that immigrated to America, were the proprietors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Manhattan, New York City. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a tragedy that changed the relationship between labor and industry. First of all, the unsafe working conditions was an important aspect of the fire. Overall, because of the Industrial Revolution, capitalism was extremely popular and involved making the most profit possible, without spending very much on the material. So, as a result …show more content…

According to Wignot, the director of the PBS video concerning the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, all 146 lives were lost all because of the drop of one cigarette. In this way, the locked doors and blocked exits was a monumental factor of why the girls had to quickly choose their fate by jumping out windows onto Washington and Greene Street or ultimately burning alive (Cornell). These young girls and women chose their own destruction rather than facing the morbid factor of burning to death. Katie Marsico, the author of the book, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Its Legacy of Labor Rights, stated that “...the fire would become a catalyst for national grief, public outrage, and eventually efforts to improve working conditions and safety standards…” (9). The fire was a very detrimental occurrence within itself overall, but the fire forced the realization that actions needed to be taken to help prevent another devastation like …show more content…

In today’s society, building regulations have made the buildings themselves better equipped for the possibility of a fire. Jonathan Fowler, a level three local firefighter volunteer in Cave City, Arkansas for the past nine years, said the fire of 1911 burned the whole building in a total of eighteen minutes. As a result, each room in a standard government building can help contain a fire for fifteen minutes and keep the flames from spreading further and causing even more destruction. Another example of a positive result from the fire is within two years of the tragedy, more than thirty laws had been passed to help prevent anything tragic that can be averted from happening again (Wignot). Another result of the fire was it made Americans realize that those women who burned were technically citizens of the United States of America, but because they were immigrants, they were discriminated against and not treated fairly (Cornell). That realization led to the fourteenth amendment being passed to address citizen rights and equal protection of the

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Dehron McMillian History 1302 Dr. Adkins-Weathersby 28 September 2014 Triangle Shirtwaist Company March 25, 1911 identified as the day of the dead, is the deadliest disaster in the industry during the Gilded Age. Over forty-six bodies lie on the street, meanwhile hundred bodies lie inside of the building. The factory took up the top three floors of a ten-story building in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York. The workers were mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant’s women along with children, sewing blouses, to earn an income as little as three dollars a week.

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Many people might say, why was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire so important? The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was so important because it was a tragedy that opened the nation's eyes to poor working conditions in garment factories. Other question might be ask why were the doors locked in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? The building had only one fire escape, Long tables and bulky machines trapped many of the victims. Panicked workers were crushed as they struggled with doors that were locked by managers to prevent theft, or doors that opened the wrong way.

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When looking more closely at the structure of the building the most obvious design flaw was the fact that the exit doors opened to the inside. When fire exits have a design like this, it deters how fast large quantities of people can exit at any given time. The text highlighted mitigating tools that can reduce risk to people and their property and if these tools were utilized before this fire some individuals that lost their life that day would have been minimal if any at all. One of the mentionable tools is taxation and fiscal policies. The owners stated in multiple investigations that the cost was just

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The triangle shirtwaist company was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris and was located on the Greene Street in Manhattan. Most of the workers were teenaged girls that worked long hours daily. Most were immigrants and knew little English. In March 25, 1911 a fire was initiated at the top of the Asch Building where the company was located. How the fire started is still a mystery.

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Despite the death and destruction it caused, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire ultimately benefited America by opening the eyes of mistreated factory workers and inspiring them to fight for better working conditions. Though it was unbeknownst at the time, the fire would inspire mistreated workers to rise out of the ashes and work tirelessly not for a factory, but for their own wellbeing. The history, the fire, and the trial that are all connected to the Triangle Shirtwaist Company are the events that led to the exploration for better working conditions. While we may not wish to remember all of the suffering the conflagration caused, we see its imprint it left on society whenever we see someone at work. This just imprint is one of safety.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire The Triangle Factory fire happened on March 25, 1911. It was a horrible disaster that killed 146 people and there were 500 workers working there on that day. Chief Croker who was the Fire Chief that reported to the Triangle factory fire. Chief Croker reported back to the factory the next day after the fire.

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Killing more than 145 workers, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is remembered to be one of the most monstrous incidents in American industrial history. The many deaths were predominately preventable, and most of the victims died from carelessness of the owners and almost non-existent factory regulations. This never forgotten tragedy led to the advancement of factory regulations and a series of laws that helped better protect the safety of workers all around the globe. The Triangle Factory, located in the top three floors of the Asch Building, on the corner

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The Owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire started on March 25, 1911. No one knows the real cause of the fire, but many people believe it was a cigarette bud tossed into a scrap bin. Out of the 500 employees that showed up to work that day, 146 died and another 71 were injured. The amount of deaths were very tragic.

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On March 25,1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City was the deadliest business tragedy in the history of New York. Every morning 100,000 people would head off to work, some of the girls would be as young as ten years old. In Asch Building on the 10th floor was where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was located. The people had to work up to 14 hours a day with a salary of 2 dollars. Out of the 100,000people there were 500 blouse makers.

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It was later discovered that the fire had probably started when a worker disposed a cigarette or match into a rag bin containing three hundred pounds of thin, oxygen-rich, cotton fabric. It was also estimated that there was a total of more than one ton of those cotton scraps in the upper three floors of the factory. “In that brief span, the fire did more killing than any other workplace disaster in New York City history up to that time, or for ninety years afterward.” It was considered “the worst industrial fire in American history.” The fire was one of the most important and biggest factors in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment.

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The book Triangle: The Fire That Changed America written by David Von Drehle recounts the dreadful incident of fire that broke out in a Triangle Shirtwaist factory on March 25, 1911 and its aftermath. In the earlier part of nineteenth century Triangle Shirtwaist factory was running a lucrative business in a multistory building in the New York City. The factory was owned by the two men Isaac Harris and Max Blank and it was located on the upper three stories of the Asch Building which was back then considered and projected as an efficient fireproof building (History). On that unfortunate day, fifteen minutes of fire gulped one hundred and forty-six innocent lives who were struggling to keep themselves and their families afloat(CBS).

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On March 25, 1911 at 4:45pm a fire started on the 8th floor. The fire doesn’t have an official cause but most speculate it was either a cigarette butt thrown in a waste basket or possibly an electrical short. The fire spread very quickly due to the paper and fabric that we piled in the factory. While some employees were trying to put the fire out with buckets of water other employees tried to make calls to the 9th and 10th floors. Attempts were made to use fire hoses that were located in the factory but when they went to turn the water on nothing came out.

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Fire drill, fire escapes, sprinkler systems, and forty-eight hour work weeks may seem so common, but if it wasn’t for the fires that broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the early 1900’s, there might not be fire and labor laws like there are today. The triangle shirtwaist factor was a clothes making facilities in downtown Manhattan.

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David Von Drehle is an American author and journalist who received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Denver. He then earned and graduated from Oxford University with a master’s degree in literature and as a Marshall Scholar. He wrote “Triangle: The Fire That Changed America” which is a book about where the people of Manhattan, suffered the tragedy of the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire which took place in the Spring of 1911. This book is “One more attempt to open up the horror of the Triangle fire, to gaze intently and unflinchingly at it, and to settle on the facts and their meaning,” (Drehle, 2003, p. 5)

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The triangle shirtwaist factory had a massive fire on March 26th, 1911 that resulted in the deaths of 141 workers. The workers would wake up every day to face a 12-hour shift whit very little pay. They would work in cramped conditions every day to make a mere $15 a week. Of the 600 workers, 141 people were employed on the top floors including the owners. Those on the top floor were the ounces that had their lives claimed by the fire except for the owner and those who escaped through the roof.

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