The Triangle Fire: A Brief History With Documents By Jo Ann E.

The Triangle Fire, A Brief History with Documents by Jo Ann E. Argersinger is a monograph discussing the life of the working class in turn of the century America. It describes in particular, the women factory workers and their plight in the early twentieth century. Starting with the unionizations before the fire, the situation wasn’t entirely pleasant. Working conditions were unsanitary, cramped, and difficult to endure. Women attempted unionization and strikes before the fire, but made limited progress. The fire allowed for some necessary reform to be brought about. The outrage concerning it was tremendous, and the fear reasonable. This fire brought the life of the factory workers into the light, instead of allowing them to continue the fight

The progress was slow, and fought for tooth and nail, but it was still progress. And then, on March 25th, 1911, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Triangle Waist Company. It was around a quarter to five in the evening, just when the girls were getting ready to leave for the night. But hundreds of those girls never made it home. Some of those on the eighth floor were lucky enough to get out. Those on the ninth had no warning until the flames engulfed them. There was a telephone call up to the tenth floor that saved Blanck and Harris’s lives. Girls burnt, people fell and tumbled to their deaths. The scene was horrific.
By eight o’clock the available supply of coffins had been exhausted, and those that had already been used began to come back from the morgue. By that time bodies were lowered at the rate of one a minute, and the number of patrol wagons became inadequate, so that four, sometimes six, coffins were loaded upon

In spite of factory owners and their lobbying, New York state legislature moved incredibly quickly providing some of the necessary reforms. They created a board to oversee working conditions and implemented several laws dealing with everything from fire escapes, to sanitation. These were specifically designed to combat issues that had caused deaths in the Triangle Fire. Things such as locked doors, wider aisles, regulations concerning allocation of flammable materials. Working hours and certain occupations were also limited in an effort to protect women and children in the workforce. Factory owners claimed that these regulations were stifling and that there was no way that they would be able to implement these changes as quickly as they had been legislated. That didn’t sway the outcome, and New York became one of the most progressive states in the nation during this time