...often have many warning signs prior to an incident but we choose to ignore them and continue to take chances as was done at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. On March 25, 1911 in New York City 146 people paid with their lives because of the unsafe working conditions that many workers endured during that time. Had just a few precautions been taken before that fateful night it is likely the loss of life would have been greatly reduced. This tragedy helped pave the way for new safety standards including better fire codes and factory safety standards. Industrial growth was proving to be hazardous to people’s health; America was now the world leader in industrial accidents. There was no denying the extremely harsh working conditions were to blame for many of the accidents. The workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on the 9th floor were getting ready to go home, standing in single file with open purses so they could be checked to ensure they were not stealing from the company. It was the end of the day and the workers were giddy to be leaving, within moments chaos ensued. Flames had broken out on the 8th floor and as they had in the past workers grabbed pails of water to douse the flames only this time the fire spread quickly, before anyone was aware the 9th floor was engulfed in flames and there was no way out. Doors were locked and fire escapes were non-existent and many of the workers were trapped in a fiery inferno. People were choosing to jump, their clothing...
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...Reactions to the Fire: Triangle Shirtwaist Company On March 25, 1911 a deadly fire broke out on the ninth floor of a clothing warehouse called the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Out of five hundred employees working, (mostly young women), one hundred and forty six had died as a result of the fire. The survivors of the fire were left to relive those agonizing moments over and over in their heads. How could such a horrible disaster occur? The images of people leaping from ninth story windows to their death because they did not want to burn alive would forever haunt the victims and the people of New York City. Employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company mostly had been young women, some as young as fifteen years old, and most were Jewish and Italian immigrants hoping for a better life no matter how bad working conditions were (http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/story/fire.html). The Triangle fire was the perfect example of how inadequate fire prevention had been back in 1911, not enough fire escapes, doors had been locked, fire escapes were not functional, many problems had captured after this tragic fire erupted. When the fire did erupt, firefighters arrived to the scene with inadequate ladders, most of the ladders were too short to even reach the ninth story. After the fire had subsided, many people were furious and took to the streets protesting for better working conditions, workers went to the unions hoping for a change to occur and also demanding that...
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...It was near closing time in the Asch Building on March 25, 1911 when the flames began. Within 18 minutes 146 people were dead. The fourth largest industrial disaster in United States history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is remembered today as a tragic incident not only because of all the deaths but because of the fact that they were preventable. The death of 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, would have been preventable if the owners had followed regulatory precautions to ensure that their workers had accessible exit paths and a set plan of action in case of such incidents. From this horrendous inferno arose public outcry for justice and worker safety reform that led to the transformation of the labor code of New York and...
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...progress for the American economy, unions saw this new business model as problematic for the progress of workers’ rights. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, although a tragedy, was the event that showed the necessity of unions to have direct involvement in legislation and policy. Using the extensive resources on the Triangle Fire from the ILR School Kheel Center as well as additional primary sources from databases and newspaper archives, we were able to analyse the impact of labor unions on the law before and after the fire as well as the actual events of the fire. Additionally we used secondary...
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...their employees safe. In the book The Triangle Fire: A Brief History with Documents, A series of documents explain the disaster that happened at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. The disaster became known around the country and started a revolution of safety hazards for work. The fire was significant because of the cause of the fire, the irresponsible employers, what the media wrote about it, and how the families of the deceased were compensated. On March 25, 1911, a fire occurred at a shirt factory and climbed the 10 story building. The fire might have been caused by the “sparks from the motors” (242). There is no direct proof what might have caused the fire, but it is likely that the recent sparks ignited nearby cloth and spread throughout the building. Once the chaos was set,...
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...“Triangle Fire of 1911” is a documentary based on the fire that occurred in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911, in which 145 workers of various ages died. The shirtwaist factory fire was the deadliest workplace accident in history, although shirtwaist factory workers had gone on strike for better working conditions before the fire it was not until after the tragedy that several laws were passed to improve working conditions. “The Triangle Fire of 1911” also talks about how the women that worked in shirtwaist factories had protested before the fire a couple years before for better working conditions. They demanded for better pay and less working hours a day. Harris and Blanck would hire prostitutes and thugs to beat the women...
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...In the film Triangle Fire, directed and produced by Jamila Wignot, many historians and writers recount the stories surrounding the “deadliest workplace accident in Manhattan’s history”. This accident took place at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory soon after the Triangle strikers demanded to work as a Union but were greeted in return with only higher wages and shorter work days. The fire began on the 8th floor, the location of many of the Triangle strikers, when a cigarette was thrown on the ground. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the factory owners, were on the 10th floor when they received a phone call about the fire and quickly found refuge next door. Although they were later acquitted, it is believed the two men were aware the stairway and exit...
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...New York City is a myriad of buildings and cultures. Consequently, many of the buildings have political and historical significance. The sites range from being the birthplace of the New Deal or George Washington’s favorite hangout tavern. Some buildings have more political significance than others. For example, the Brown Building housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. In 1911, a brief factory fire would shed light on the cruel working environments endured by workers. The history of the fire and building has a lifetime impact on the workplace and employer standards. The Shirtwaist Factory fire played a significant role as a catalyst for labor reforms. The Triangle Waist Company, founded in the early twentieth century by Isaac Harris and Max...
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...The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a terrible tragedy. The factory in New York City burned down and nearly 145 people died from the tragedy. The factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, was at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place in Manhattan. It is known for one of the most infamous incidents in American history since the deaths were impossibly preventable. Most of the victims died because of the neglected safety issues, such as locked doors in the factory building. Almost all the employees were teenage girls from ages 14-23 who don’t speak English. These women had just immigrated from Italy or Russia. This tragedy attracted attention for other factories to be aware of their safety of workers....
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...The Triangle fire that claimed the lives of 146 people, most of them immigrant women and girls, caused an outcry against unsafe working conditions in factories. Firefighters arrived at the scene, but their ladders could only reach the 6th floor of the 10- storey building. Workers were trapped inside because the owners had locked the fire escape exit doors to prevent theft, so workers jumped to their deaths. The government could’ve prevented the Triangle fire earlier if they listened to the workers’ plea for a safety working environment. Union organization tried to address the employees’ working conditions but wasn’t recognized. The fire was a catalyst for change in New York regarding the role of government in protecting workers because of the...
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...worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were women. Very young women. Many of these individuals were newly arrived immigrants who were overworked, underpaid, often underaged and underprivileged. The rampant abuse of these workers was especially prevalent at this particular company because the owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were greedy. They saw their empire beginning to crumble due to changing trends in fashion and fierce rivalries among competitors. As a result, they decided to push their workers to be more efficient with less compensation. Bathroom breaks became nonexistent and water breaks were unheard of. These 14 hour work days that spanned 6 days a week were a monstrosity. Unfortunately,...
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...How Does the Triangle Factory Fire Effect us Today? The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was tragic moment for the city of New York. You could have done many things to not start the fire. People don’t know for sure how it started, but we people today think a cigar was thrown into a bin which caused the fire. How does this affect our lives today? Well it does because this tragedy brought widespread attention to the dangerous sweatshop conditions of factories, and led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of workers. 36 laws were enacted after the fire. Many health and safety laws enacted. 146 people died on March 25, 1911.The 36 laws enacted covered improved sanitation conditions such as...
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...disaster in the history of New York City occurred. 146 women and teenage girls died in a fire that broke out on the top three floors of the ten-story work building that the Triangle Shirtwaist Company shared with other businesses. The fire was likely started with a cigarette bud being dropped, and the fire quickly grew with all the clothing and material to burn on. The young women tried to escape without the accommodation of a safe and appropriate exit. There was one flimsy fire exit staircase that quickly buckled under the pressure of dozens and dozens of women trying to run down it and one working elevator out of five that functioned enough to make four trips before the tragedy ended. Women...
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...Reform That Triangle! The Industrial Revolution launched the world into a new time of machines and cities. Change happened so quickly, nothing could keep up with it, not even the governments. Consequently, there was a lack of regulations and laws. This absence of procedures led to one of the worst disasters in United States history—the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. In our textbook, we learned about labor reforms and how they were created, however we were not given any specific examples of events that directly affected this. These are the details on one such example. On March 25th, 1911, a fire spread through the upper floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s Factory, sending laborers into a frenzied panic. “In front of me I saw flames on the outside of the windows shooting up. The flames were climbing up from the 8th floor”(http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/). At the end of the day, more than 140 people perished in the...
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...The Triangle Factory Fire Was the Perfect Storm On March 25th, 1911 at 4:45 P.M., workers on the 8th floor of the Asch Building are getting ready for quitting time and are standing around idly and conversing with one another. Although it is unknown exactly how the fire started, it is assumed that a worker flicked a cigarette ash into one of the baskets of spare cloth under the desks. And while the Asch Building itself was fireproof, the contents unfortunately were not. The fire consumed the table above it and continued to spread out. The workspace on the 8th floor had perfect conditions for a fire, overcrowded and stuffed full of flammable cloth. Locked doors and doors that opened inward instead of outward also caused many deaths. Many...
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