The Story Of The Fire At The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory In New York City

On March 25th, 1911, a horrific tragedy occurred which would alter industry and building regulations in America forever. 146 individuals, which were mainly comprised of young women, lost their lives as a result of hazardous working conditions in the factory at which they were employed. The lack of safety regulations in the building, which caused said tragedy, resulted in a crusade by the American people, for nationwide workplace parameters. Since this catastrophe, working conditions have improved significantly, and organizations have been put into place to ensure that buildings are in accordance with health and fire regulations. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, which caused the death of 146 people, has forever changed

to 8:00 p.m. with a half-hour break for lunch and made a mere $ 6 a week. They labored in crowded conditions bent over sewing machines 13 hours a day. The factory was poorly ventilated, and the floors and ceilings were covered with material scraps and finished shirtwaists. (Bilodeau)
These women worked in deplorable working conditions, for a ludicrous number of hours each week, and earned meager compensation. Although to modern readers, the women’s working conditions alone seem horrific, at this time, these conditions were far from uncommon across factories in

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. The problem with these was that one was locked, in order to prevent the workers from stealing the products from the factory, and the other opened inward (Triangle Shirtwaist). If the employers had used an alternative way to prevent theft from the factory, or had allowed the secondary staircase to open outward instead of inward, it is quite probable that many of the women that perished would have survived. The third way to exit the factory was through the fire escape, however “the fire escape was so narrow that it would have taken hours for all the workers