Research Paper On The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Of 1911

Workers Rights During 1911, workers did not have many rights. The tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire caused 146 innocent women and children to lose their lives. The people of the public started to realize the harsh conditions that the blue collared workers of America have to deal with. They had absolutely no safety regulations or rules. Because of the fire, many new safety regulations have been issued. “Every building has to have a enforced fire drill and fire alarms” to keep the workers safe (The Labor Law). In 1970, the government created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to make sure that the new safety regulations were being enforced. The girls in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire all died a horrific

Companies did not care if their employees got hurt or injured in any way, shape, or form. The workers were working for many hours a day with very little pay. Children were working instead of going to school. If a worker died, the company would just replace them with someone new. The workers that had it the worst were immigrant women and children. They “worked long hours for little pay”(Flesh & Blood So Cheap). “In 1911, 50,000 people died on the job-that is about 140 a day, every day”(Flesh & Blood So Cheap). They did not have any health insurance, and if you were hurt or even killed on the job then that is too bad. The employers did not care because they thought the immigrant women and children were easy to replace. According to OSHA, “every worker has the right to a safe workplace” (osha.gov). The company owners did not care for their employees at all. In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, many young women and girls were forced to work six days a week with very little pay. According to source five of the research packet, the “girls worked in tight spaces with sewing machines close together” (What Went Wrong?). So close, that a person could barely get up and move around. Around this time, none of the girls in the factory have ever done a fire drill. The building did not even have a sprinkler system. The factory did not have a third fire escape, and also had boxes blocking exits which prevented the girls from escaping the

That morning, a fire broke out on the ninth floor of the factory. Nobody knows what had started the fire, however, some believed a cigarette thrown on the oily floor could have started the fire. The terrible working conditions caused 146 out of the 600 workers to lose their lives. The “oily floors (caused) the fire to spread quickly” (What Went Wrong?). The fire escape that they had was rusty and it collapsed, making it unusable during the fire. The fire trucks had ladders that only reached the sixth floor. The young women and children were jumping out of the windows to their deaths to get away from the fire. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were blamed for all of the deaths of the young girls. They were blamed because the fire marshals found that the doors were locked, locking the girls inside the room and causing them to be burned alive. The girls that did not burn alive are the ones that jumped out the window to get away. The fall caused every girl that jumped to lose their lives. The court case says that the lawyer asks the owners why they would locked the girls in the room in the first place. Mr. Harris claims they locked the doors because they had “ten dollars, or fifteen dollars” stolen the year before the fire (Testimony by Workers). The owners claimed that this is why the locked the girls in the rooms while they worked. The court ruled Mr. Harris and Mr.