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.
Introduction Summary The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is considered one of the deadliest fire tragedies in history that claimed 146 lives of mostly young girls and women. Majority of the victims were Italian and Jewish immigrants working in the garment factory (Lewis, 2016). They escaped their mother countries to seek better lives in the United States, but instead were met with terrible conditions of working and grinding poverty. In 1911, March 25th on a Saturday afternoon, a tragedy occurred in New York City in the garment company called Triangle Shirtwaist, where a fire occurred in the Asch Building top floors.
In the early 1900’s worker’s did not have a lot of rights and as a result work had to work in unsafe environments, they worked long hours, and had to endure horrible work conditions. Two years before the fire the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) Local 25 assisted more than 15,000 workers to achieve better wages and safer work conditions. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, who owned the Triangle Shirt Waist factory in New York City refused to let their employees organize a union and actually ended up firing over 500 people for supporting a union although some that were there at the time of the fire were a part of the ILGWU. There were roughly 500 people working in the Triangle Waist Company and were mostly made of immigrant women.
Almost all of them were immigrants from Europe. Dozens of workers jumped or fell to the concrete sidewalk ( 100 feet ). They also tried to escape by the building's fire escape and down fire truck ladders. But the fire escape fell apart under the weight of so many people, and the fire trucks did not have tall enough ladders. I believe that the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire led to major changes in the nation's labor
There were 600 workers present. They attempted to use the fire hose but it was unsuccessful because the hose was rotted and the valve was shut. Only 48 workers escaped through the elevator. Others went through the stairway where they burned to their deaths when there was a locked door. Jumpers broke the nets that were provided when three jumpers went at the exact same
Could the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory have been prevented? I am not going to answer that question just yet. Without assessing all of the information to prevent the making of unfounded accusations. First things first you may be asking yourself what a Triangle Shirtwaist is. A triangle shirtwaist is a type of blouse that many women wore in the early 1900's.
To determine this, many sources and ideas must be recognized and appointed. One of the ideas that has come to mind was that a cigarette butt from the workers who had secretly been smoking had made it's way into the cloth bin and, because of the highly flammable material the blouses were made of, it set the bin and the building ablaze. Another idea that has come to mind is that maybe the owners of the establishment, Max and Isaac, burned the building down on purpose, making this an even more interesting topic. Some of the evidence that has risen up from the possible dark truth below is that the doors leading out of the building on the ninth floor, where the doors were supposedly locked and/ or were designed to be pushed outwards instead of inwards. Max and Isaac claim that this was because of a theft concern, and that this would keep minimal thefts happening (Martin par 8).
On March 25, 1911 in New York City, one of the most tragic disasters on record in the history of American industry transpired. This horrendous event will forever be known as The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Somewhere near closing time on that horrific Saturday afternoon, a fire broke out on the top three floors of the Asch building which were being occupied by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Within minutes chaos arose, everything had erupted into madness, forever disrupting the lives of hundreds of young workers. When the fire was over, 146 of the 500 employees had died an extremely miserable death during the disastrous event.
The Shirtwaist Fire had an impact on Immigration, Workplace conditions, the Factors of Production and The Women’s Rights Suffrage. The fire that changed America was the deadliest Industrial Disaster in History. At the beginning of the twentieth century, factory owners treated their workers with little consideration. They paid very few, Wanted long hours without breaks, and took small care for the safety of their employees. a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a clothing company located in the top floors of a New York Building.
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.
The New York Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is infamous as one of the deadliest industrial disasters in United States history. However, it is was a turning point for American labor. The public outrage that erupted following the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was the primary force behind the expansion of labor laws in the United States of America. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire led to the expansion of labor laws because of its conditions.
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
In 1911, one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history occurred when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers. It is one of the most remembered incidents since the deaths were largely preventable. Most victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors within the factory building. While the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire did result in a new legislation for safety in the work place, it was not the most important result. The most important result was the institution of the process to enforce pre-existing legislation regarding worker safety and protection in the workplace along with the laws that followed.
On March 25, 1911 a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Asch Building in New York City. This horrific fire greatly impacted the nation. The death of 146 workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire were caused by negligence on the part of the owners of the factory and the laissez-faire practices of the state of New York
After the fire, the horrible event made factories transparent to Americans and Americans realized that industrial workers were being treated unfairly. The tragedy exposed the inhumane working conditions that the industrial workers had to the government also, so social reform became the nation’s number one issue to focus on. Countless state and federal laws were passed in direct relation to this incident. This event affects Americans today because it played a key role in the laws and regulation we have in the
