Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire – March 1911

It is an incredibly important event, yet many Americans are only vaguely aware of it. (Recently I asked a group of students how many were aware of what happened during the fire and more than have had not heard of it.) Despite sitting in lower Manhattan, on the campus of New York University, the Brown Building (formerly the Asch Building) at 23-29 Washington Place feels like it is a remote corner of the city. Perhaps it is the perfect metaphor for how we remember the Triangle Fire.

One of the best accounts of the fire, the trial that followed and its legacy is David von Drehle’s Triangle: The Fire that Changed America. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was a place where young, primarily female, immigrants worked long hours for low wages. Employees were regularly cheated by their employers. Minutes were shaved off their lunch hours and time clock were “fixed” to elicit a little extra work out of the employees (von Drehle, pg. 7). On 25 March 1911, a fire raced through the factory killing 146 employees, some as young as 14 years. Locked doors and exits, unsafe working conditions and improper fire equipment all led to a high number of deaths. In an era of factory owners trying to secure massive profits, the economic well-being or safety of workers was not a primary concern.

The Brown Building (June 2013)

It is easy to disregard a number of deaths from a century ago; and, for some, it was almost as easy to do it then. The owners of Triangle, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, “were rich men, and when they glanced into the faces of their employees, they saw, with rare exceptions, anonymous cogs in a profit machine” (von Drehle, pg. 36). Yet, we often forget that in many cases these young women were the bread winners of their families; they were entrepreneurial and hardworking. These young people left behind a legacy of heartbreak and sorrow that often had ramifications in Eastern Europe. The lives of Blanck and Harris would not change substantially as a result, although their families were present in the building during the fire. Although there was a trial, the owners were acquitted of all responsibility even though this was not the first fire at one of their factories. On the other hand, many poor immigrant families were devastated. Shelia Nevins wrote a moving letter to her great aunt Celia (Gitlin) who perished in the fire years later when she realized the family stories were true. Celia was young (17 years), an immigrant (from Russia) and did not speak English. Yet, she came to American to find a job and a better life. Shelia’s letter asks questions that will never be answered and reminds the modern day reader that the people who lost their lives that terrible day in late March 1911 were real people, with hopes and dreams.

As the fire raged through the factory, trapping many of the workers, some chose to take their lives by jumping rather than waiting for a death by flames. Such actions had a traumatic effect upon those who witnessed the tragedy. As I lingered in the area around the Brown building on a Saturday morning in late June, I remembered von Drehle’s account. Even though the sidewalks have surely been paved over numerous times in the 102 years since the fire I still considered them with some trepidation. 

If anything good can come of such a tragedy, this may be an example. The fire served as an impetus to better workplace safety standards in the United States. We are occasionally reminded that those standards do not apply worldwide and that workers often face very dangerous working conditions elsewhere. A couple months ago, the collapse of a building in Bangladesh is reminder that workers continue to face unsafe working conditions. Even in the United States, the question of fair labor standards continues and some will occasionally bemoan safety regulation, even after more than a hundred years after Triangle. Yet this is more than a historical event, it is legacy and reality that bears remembrance and consideration.

Update: Bangladeshi Garment Factories (9 July 2013)

A consortium of European retailers agreed to a plan to inspect and upgrade Bangladeshi clothing factories in an effort to protect the safety of workers. The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar killed 1,127 people in April. Under the plan European and Bangladeshi officials would inspect garment factories for safety hazards, including fire escapes and structural problems that make the buildings prone to collapse. The British and Dutch governments have offered to finance any modifications that would need to occur to bring buildings into line with safety standards. Yet, American companies have opted not to participate, instead trying to establish a program of their own. There is speculation that American companies were concerned with the costs and effects on profits. (See New York Times, The Guardian, Voice of America)

A fire in November 2012 at a Bangladeshi factory killed 112 workers, a number that is similar to the 146 workers who died in Triangle Fire. As David von Drehle pointed out, factory workers are often faceless cogs to consumers, retailers and factory owners.