When New York went through such horrible event new laws were put into place. The new laws are new safety and fire regulations, child labor laws and work compensation. Every
Frances Perkins, a survivor from the Shirtwaist Factory Fire quotes “Moved by this sense of stricken guilt, we banded ourselves together to find a way by law to prevent this kind of disaster.” Frances Perkins became secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and this quote said by Perkins “something must be done. We’ve got to turn this into some kind of victory, some kind of constructive action,” helped new workplace safety standards into law in the state of New York. The benefits that I would like the audience to see is how workplace safety is important by learning about the history of regulation, OSHA, and workers compensation.
On March 25, 1911, on a Saturday afternoon, as the businesses were closing, the top floors of Asch Building where Triangle Waist Company was situated, a fire broke out. It was a moment of terror to many of the workers and passersby, as the inferno razed down the building. In the building, there were many people including women, boath young and old. The Triangle Waist Company Fire consumed a woeful 146 lives, becoming one of the worst catastrophes to ever be recorded in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. New York City had many factories growing and as such the risk associated with it was also on the rise.
The odds The time period of 1865 to 1900 was an era called the Gilded Age. The citizens of America saw a change in the way the country operated. The country started to become more industrialized based, while the agriculture industry decreased. Due to these changes in the economy, industrial workers and farmers struggled.
At the end of the nineteenth century, beginning of the twentieth, America was in an era of industrial growth. People began to think that the social and economic problems of the last century had to do with rapid industrialization in America. Progressives, also known as reformers, sought to fight against issues such as the status of women in society, labour rights and immigration. With the growth of industrialization, factories had grown in size and unsafe working conditions were the norm. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company on March 25, 1911 in New York City changed the way America dealt with labour reform regarding working conditions.
From the point of view of one of the McClure’s Magazine author, Mary Alden Hopkins, we observe another way how the impact of labor conditions affected the city. This magazine article provides an outsider’s perspective on the factory fire in the early 20th century. In her article, ‘The Newark Factory Fire,’ she not only explains how poor the working conditions were, but she also explains how little safety the workers who endured these conditions had. Safety regulations were not taken seriously and this eventually lead to Newark being the site of the first disastrous Factory Fire. Hopkins explains, “the building was erected before the days of the fire-proof construction… the buildings was classed as extra hazardous by the insurance companies, and rated $2.09 on contents and $1.69 gross on buildings” (Hopkins, 1).
“Working Women and the Triangle Fire” by Elizabeth Burt begins by providing detailed information about hard-working, exploited women in the labor force. The article describes previous attempts of women factory workers to organize to protest injustice, and also explains that “the press had sporadically covered these attempts” (Burt 190). Next, the author provides specific examples of the work of journalists who wrote about frustrated women workers, but states that these articles mainly appeared in the women’s sections of newspapers. Workers had the most success by participating in labor actions (Burt 190). The article describes that when the press covered most labor movements, focus was placed on negotiations, violence, or the character of the
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.
In April 2013, Matthew Yglesias, an American Economics Journalist proposed the people of Bangladesh would not appreciate having stronger safety standards in their country because it would cause undue harm economically. He asserts Bangladesh should have different lower standards for safety because they are a poorer country. Most of the people involved in the New York tragedy of 1911 also known as the Triangle Fire, would not agree with Matthew Yglesias on his assertion that lower economic status would be an indication of lower safety standards in factories. Namely, the workers, the union leaders, the progressive reformers and the political leaders would all vote for higher standards commiserate with the United States. The only ones who would not argue with Yglesias are the owners of the Triangle Factory with their vested interest, their own problems of multiple fires and accusations of safety neglect.
During the nineteenth century economic changes increased the amount of European industrial workers. Conditions under which they lived and worked improved along with the availability of jobs for women. Ultimately, the industrial revolution and the agricultural revolution lead to migration to cities for factory work. Theses changes in conditions for industrial workers were caused by the debate between government involvement in economics and if workers themselves have to take the initiative to create changes. English economists argue that the government should not get involved in helping the poor.
The Jungle In the literary work, The Jungle, the author, Upton Sinclair makes a commentary on the deceitful and dark truth of the American dream. This was achieved by using the canned meat that was produced in Packingtown as a symbol to represent the dream that all the immigrants had about their new lives in America. As the story progresses, the reader, along with the protagonist, Jurgis will discover that the American dream lies cloaked behind a shroud of beautiful lies that masks the vile truths that are the American dream and the canned “beef” processed by the corrupt meat business in Packingtown.
Rape on the Night Shift is a documentary about the sexual assaults that some of the janitors suffer while working at night. This documentary reveals the injustice that these workers have to go through because most of them are undocumented and they don’t know their rights. The experiences of woman in this documentary is correlated with the feminist theory, the idea of seeing women unequal to men and the idea of the men having the power to control women. Indeed, the documentary let us see the gender inequality, exploitation, and the de-valuing of woman’s work. We see the feminist theory in the documentary when the managers or supervisors sexually abuse of their workers.
In the article it says that women entered jobs like engineering, other professions, and manufacturing jobs that many people believed that those jobs were too dangerous for women and women were too weak. In their jobs, women made airplanes, warships, munitions, and tanks working in technical and scientific fields. Also, after the war, women were still employed as secretaries, waitresses, or in other clerical jobs. This was often called the “pink collar” force. This article shows how sometimes women are given clerical jobs that show people underestimate the abilities of women.
But alas, most workers were in dangerous jobs, and a lot were hurt or killed. Working conditions were so bad, that labor organizations were formed, and strikes and protests began to have the government to step in and help the average american. Paragraph 2: With urbanization, corporations and companies looked for ways to cut corners, or increase their profit margin. This lead to some safety issues.
The corporations and management system was faulty. They didn’t provide worker safety measures. They focused on consolidation, and simply removed competitors. They had
