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Essay On Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

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1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Nicole R. Ford Southern New Hampshire University One hundred and forty-five lives were lost on March 24th 1911 with one of the deadliest industrial disasters in U.S. history. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City caught fire taking the lives of 145 workers. The lack of proper fire prevention devices, and no fire safety education played a factor in a significant historical safety regulation reform. By learning from our mistakes in the past we as a nation have grown into who we are today the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is the paragon for workplace reform. The Triangle Shirtwaist building was reported to be fire proof. So what fueled the fire? Isaac Harris and Max Blanck owned …show more content…

By letting the businesses to focus on making profit instead of spending their money on their workers safety. This allowed the presence of horrible working conditions, overcrowding and the lack of fire safety instructions. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is what made the radical change for the government to create the FIC, the Factory Investigation Committee. Investigating the working conditions of industrial factories and to make necessary improvements for safety if needed is why the FIC was created (Pool 2012). The commission in its preliminary report stated, “ In the matter of industrial production, we are still under the sway of the old laissez-faire policy, and there is still very inadequate supervision of industries with a view to lessening dangers to the health and life of working class” (Preliminary Report, 1912). It is evident that the committees priority is to dramatically change the way the factories are operating to insure the safety of its workers its top …show more content…

Automatic sprinklers, properly working fire escapes, and fire proof receptacles were among the recommendations for the businesses to instill. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory could have been prevented and more lives could have been saved if there were fireproof receptacles in the factory and were properly emptied. The fire spread so quickly trapping many inside. An article from the New York Times states “what burned so quickly and disastrously for the victims were shirtwaists, hanging on lines above tiers of workers, sewing machines placed so closely together that there was hardly aisle room for the girls between them, and shirtwaist trimmings and cuttings which littered the floors above the eighth and ninth stories” (141 men, 1911). The trimmings that laid among the floor is what caused the fire to spread so rapidly. Had an automatic sprinkler system been in place the fire would have been put out allowing the victims to not panic and get out safely and lives would have been saved. Automatic sprinklers have been proven effective and the system pays for itself eventually with the reduction in fire insurance costs. By having fire escape doors and the windows labeled and built large enough for a large capacity to pass through without any obstructions. Linder stated the obstruction and the narrow fire escape were the primary cause

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Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist fire Disaster hit March 25, 1911 at 4:40 pm at the Triangle Shirt Waste Factory when it caught on fire by a cigarette bud or burning match. The employees were mainly young women and girls of Italian and Jewish decent and 146 died that day. The workers wanted out of the building but one of the doors was locked in the stairwell. Speculation was that Isaac Harris locked the door. Some of the women and girls jumped off the building and out the windows to trying to survive which was interfering with the firemen trying to put out the fire.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire begun on March 25,1911. The fire started because someone had dropped a cigarette and started the fire. The fire started on the 8th floor of the factory, it continued up to the 9th floor. The fire killed around 145 workers. Some people jumped and killed themselves rather than getting burned alive, one jumper survived the jump.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a devastating fire that killed 146 girls in New York City (Leap for Life, Leap for Death). At this time, citizens of New York were furious and demanded that the government do something to prevent future tragedies. The government responded and the reforms that the government made, it changed the future of New York industry. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, one of history’s deadliest fires, came as a result of outrageously unsafe working conditions, led to a high death toll and injury total, but, ultimately resulted in reforms that helped safeguard future factory workers.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a deadly blaze that ended the lives of 146 garment workers in New York City in the year 1911. Many of those who perished were Jewish and Italian immigrant women, trying to make a living working at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Many died in a very violent fashion. As described by one observer, “Jumping from ten stories up! They are going through the air like bundles of clothes and the firemen can’t stop them and the policeman can’t stop them and nobody can help at all” (Klein, 2001, pg. 498).

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Regardless of how the fire started, due to the piles of fabric all over the factory, the fire spread quickly. According to User (n.d.), the New York Law stated that buildings under 150 feet were not required to have stone or concrete floors and metal trim/window frames; since the Asch building was 135 feet, it did not have metal trim/window frames and a stone or concrete floors. Instead, the Asch building was constructed out of wood surfaces. If it would have had non-wood surfaces, the fire might not have been able to spread as quickly or done as much damage. All of the workers panicked as they tried to find a way out.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurred on March 25th, 1911 in New York City, and flabbergasted the citizens of the US by showing them the brutal consequences of the way that factory workers were being treated at the time. The triangle factory fire was the deadliest industrial disaster to have ever occurred in the city at the time that it happened. Located on the top three floors of the Asch building, the factory was one of the largest producers of the popular women’s shirtwaist blouse, and became a martyr for employee rights after 1911. Because of its location in what was considered to be one of the most progressive cities in the world and its adjacency to some of the most influential people in the country, the triangle shirtwaist factory

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On March 25, 1911, one of the most tragic disasters in American Industry occurred. 146 women, men and children died in the triangle shirtwaist factory fire. People either died in the fire or jumped to their deaths to avoid being burned alive. This tragedy exposed the inhuman working conditions that workers faced while working in factories and the utter disregard of the factory owners. These deaths were completely preventable, these people died as a result of neglect.

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The detrimental Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is considered to be one of the most tragic disasters in history. On March 25th, 1911, a fire broke out and killed 146 garment workers who were mostly women. These women worked countless hours with low wages and inhumane working conditions in a factory. Even though this event was tragic, the triangle shirtwaist fire helped to shape the new world for the better. The multitude of workers trapped within the inferno to their demise was the final straw for the mistreatment of America’s workers.

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On March 25th, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Factory, in New York City, was destroyed by a fire. This fire was cause to the death of 145 people, most were teenage girls who were burned, suffocated, or jumped to their deaths. This fire was the spark to a Labor Reform Movement. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire led to safer working conditions, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and to improved worker benefits. Working conditions were poor in the early 1900’s.

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The casualties from this incident could have been dramatically lessened, if not altogether eradicated, if the factory had taken basic safety precautions in order to ensure the safety of their workers. An article from history.com explains that “there were four elevators with access to the factory floors, but only one was fully operational, and the workers had to file down a long, narrow corridor in order to reach it” (Triangle Shirtwaist). The single working elevator only held up to twelve people at a time (New York City). If all of these elevators had been in working order, and were more accessible to the workers, the men and women could have used them to escape, and numerous lives could have been saved. Aside from elevators, there were also two staircases that reached to the bottom floor.

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The American workplace before the Progressive Era was an abysmal and dangerous environment. Safety measures that, today, we would think of as obvious were not mandatory before the reforms began. After major disasters like the Triangle Factory fire, in which over a hundred women were killed, reforms were put into place that put more emphasis on safety in the workplace. These changes included basic things like readily available fire extinguishers and access to emergency exits.

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One of the largest problems with the growth of corporate power across the United States was that monopolies were beginning to be formed around entire industries, allowing for one parent company to control the price that consumers would have to play for all products that they controlled, resulting in the American people having to pay preposterous prices for products such as gas. Safety standards and regulations were practically nonexistent during this time, with companies allowing for things such as child labor, along with frequent deaths of employees who had to work closely with dangerous and faulty machinery. Costs were cut on basic safety processions such as fire escapes, resulting in deaths of thousands of workers in different factory fires across the country, one of the most famous of which was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, resulting in the deaths of 146 female employees who had been locked in the building during work hours to increase productivity. Accidents such as this is what triggered the creations of labor groups and unions including the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor to protest injustices such as the safety violations of workers, the poor treatment of workers, and

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In the meantime the triangle shirtwaist factory fire took the life of hundreds of people and had an estimated loss in millions, which distinctly showed the terrible workplace and the safety of the workers (The

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