OUTLINE FOR TRIANGLE

Misery lane-Manhattan’s Charity piers was where the bodies were laid out whenever disaster struck.
March 26, 1911-makeshift morgue at end of pier where 100 women and two dozen men were laid out.
March 25, 1911- Triangle fire took place. Most important and deadliest work place disaster for 90 yrs. Fire lasted ½ hour. 146 dead.
Workplace safety was scarcely regulated, workmens comp was considered newfangled or socialist.
Triangle fire was different because it was the crucial moment in a change of events-events that forced fundamental reforms fro the political machinery of New York, and, after New York the nation,
America experienced a huge immigration, transfer of brain and labor power from abroad (especially from Europe)
Max Blanck and Isaac Harris: prominent immigrant factory owners
‘Born in Russia, both men had immigrated to the United States in the early 1890s, and, like hundreds of thousands of other Jewish immigrants, they had both begun working in the garment industry. After a decade, the two men entered a partnership that would propel their careers and earn them the nickname of New York's "Shirtwaist Kings." T hey decided to enter a partnership that would capitalize on Blanck's business sense and Harris' industry expertise. In 1900, they founded the Triangle Waist Company and opened their first shop on Wooster Street. At the turn of the century, the shirtwaist was a new item. arris and Blanck moved their company to the ninth floor of the brand new Asch building on the corner of Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Harris designed the layout of the sewing floor himself, placing the tables in a way that would minimize conversation among the workers in an effort to increase productivity. In 1906, the successful company expanded to the eighth floor. sales at the Triangle Factory hit the $1 million mark. Harris and Blanck purchased the 10th floor of the Asch building for their administrative offices. Producing more than 1,000 shirtwaists a day, the Triangle Factory had become the largest manufacturer of blouses in New York, earning Harris and Blanck the nickname "Shirtwaist Kings." Poor working conditions increased dissatisfaction among employees. Harris and Blanck's decision to house the factory in a new, modern high-rise building, as opposed to the more common practice of operating several smaller "sweatshops," made it easier for workers to build solidarity and sisterhood, and Triangle Factory workers went on strike in November 1909. As former garment workers themselves, Blanck and Harris considered the strike a "personal attack;" they were particularly threatened by unionization, which they thought posed the greatest danger to their control over production. The owners hired private policemen and thugs to beat, berate, and cause disarray among picketers. As the strike extended into 1910, and the resulting decrease in productivity began to hurt profits, Harris and Black agreed to demands for shorter hours and higher wages but remained steadfast in their opposition to a union.
On March 25, 1911, only 13 months after the strike ended, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the factory. On the 10th floor, Harris and Blanck were alerted of the fire by phone and escaped to safety by climbing over neighboring rooftops. Workers on the eighth floor rushed to escape down the stairs and in the elevator. On the ninth floor, however, people remained unaware of the fire until smoke filled the room and flames were already blocking the exits. Out of the 200 workers on the floor, 146 perished, many jumping to their death on the pavement below.’ (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/triangle-harris-blanck/)

1881: Eastern European Immigrants entered the US. Biggest and most influencial migrations in history. Arrivals were met with severe poverty. Arrived at 200 per day. Built businesses, theatres, and own newspapers.
Clara Lemlich-Family migrated from Russia. Not content working with her brothers in the factory. Longed for education. One of the organizers and influential striker. Father hated Russians and forbid the language in the home.
Was an activist. Was beaten by Charley Rose for striking.Charley Hired by Tammany Hall to try to stop striking,
. Lemlich became involved in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and was elected to the executive board of Local 25 of the ILGWU.
Lemlich quickly made a name for herself among her fellow workers, leading several strikes of shirtwaist makers and challenging the mostly male leadership of the union to organize women garment workers. She combined boldness with a good deal of charm (she was known for her fine singing voice) and personal bravery (she returned to the picket line in 1909 after having several ribs broken when gangsters hired by the employers attacked the picketers).
Lemlich came to the attention of the outside world at the mass meeting held at Cooper Union on November 22, 1909 to rally support for the striking shirtwaist workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and Leiserson Company. After the leading figures of the American labor movement and socialist leaders of the Lower East Side spoke in general terms about the need for solidarity and preparedness, Lemlich demanded the opportunity to speak. Lifted onto the platform she demanded action:
"I have listened to all the speakers, and I have no further patience for talk. I am a working girl, one of those striking against intolerable conditions. I am tired of listening to speakers who talk in generalities. What we are here for is to decide whether or not to strike. I make a motion that we go out in a general strike."
The crowd responded enthusiastically and, after taking a traditional Yiddish oath — "If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise" — voted for a general strike. Approximately 20,000 out of the 32,000 workers in the shirtwaist trade walked out in the next two days; this would become known as the Uprising of the 20,000. Lemlich took a leading role in bringing workers out, speaking at rallies until she lost her voice. The strike lasted until February 10, 1910, producing union contracts at almost every shop, but not at Triangle Shirtwaist. Lemlich devoted herself to the campaign for women's suffrage. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Lemlich)

New York shirt waist makers: catalyst for the forces of changes.: drive for women rights and and other civil rights. The rise of unions and the use of activist government to address social problems.
-No government programs, no pension and no social security at these times.
-No public agencies to help immigrants that were pouring into the country.(triangle)
Tenanents- ‘Poor immigrants who came to New York City during the mid 1800s into the early 1900s usually lived in the tenement district amid crime, filth and disease. The tenement houses in the lower part of Manhattan and other areas were overcrowded, lacking drainage and sufficient ventilation. Immigrants had to live in damp smelly cellars or attics, or up to six or 10 people, men, woman and children packed into crowded single rooms where "filth for so many years reigned undisturbed and pestilence wiping out hundreds of lives annually." Garbage and slop from the houses were thrown into the streets, left to fester in the scorching sun. Along the streets, one would find in various stages of decomposition dead dogs, cats or rats.

As you entered the overcrowded tenement buildings, you were greeted with a nauseating stench emanating from unwashed bodies, rags, old bottles, stale cooking odors and accumulating garbage heaps in the rooms. Decaying grease adhering to waste-pipes from kitchen sinks added its putrid odor to the foul emanations. These tenement buildings were dangerous firetraps, as well as a breeding place for murderous rodents that would kill babies in their cribs. The poor did not have the luxury of water, especially if they lived on the upper level. Water had to be carted from the fire hydrant in the street and carted upstairs.’ (http://thehistorybox.com/ny_city/tenement_life_gallery.htm)
Tammany Hall: ‘Tammany Hall, the corrupt, Democratic political machine that had controlled the election of most New York officials since the 1860s, was firmly on the side of factory owners and industrialists. After all, Tammany honchos valued the potential campaign donations and bribes from the owners of the city’s 30, 000 factories more than the goodwill of the 600, 000 struggling workers who toiled in them with few regulations of any kind protecting their welfare.
Tammany had the working class and immigrant vote locked up anyway with its system of patronage and assistance to the needy. While Tammany had been paying lip service to organized labor to neutralize socialist agitators who aired out workers’ grievances, it sent the city’s police force to intimidate and arrest strikers, who were protesting long hours, low pay, and unsafe working conditions. Female strikers, some of whom had instigated the strike, were called “streetwalkers,” and thrown in jail with prostitutes and criminals. Others were beaten on the streets by Tammany-connected thugs. ‘

Read more at Suite101:( Tammany Hall and the Triangle Fire | Suite101.com http://suite101.com/article/tammany-hall-and-the-triangle-fire-a277899#ixzz1yv7QugSg)
Tammany Hall also had cops on the payroll and lutenants. (Triangle)
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union-The ILGWU had a sudden upsurge in membership that came as the result of two successful mass strikes in New York City.
The first, in 1909, was known as “the Uprising of 20,000” and lasted for fourteen weeks. It was largely spontaneous, sparked by a short walkout of workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, involving only about 20% of the workforce. That, however, only prompted the rest of the workers to seek help from the union. The firm locked out its employees when it learned what was happening.
The news of the strike spread quickly to all the New York garment workers. At a series of mass meetings, after the leading figures of the American labor movement spoke in general terms about the need for solidarity and preparedness, Clara Lemlich rose to speak about the conditions she and other women worked under and demanded an end to talk and the calling of a strike of the entire industry. The crowd responded enthusiastically and, after taking a traditional Yiddish oath, "If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise," voted for a general strike. Approximately 20,000 out of the 32,000 workers in the shirtwaist trade walked out in the next two days.
Those workers – primarily immigrants and mostly women – defied the preconceptions of more conservative labor leaders, who thought that immigrants and women could not be organized. Their slogan "We'd rather starve quick than starve slow" summed up the depth of their bitterness against the sweatshops in which they worked.
The strike was a violent one. Police routinely arrested picketers for trivial or imaginary offenses while employers hired local thugs to beat them as police looked the other way.
A group of wealthy women, among them Frances Perkins, Anne Morgan, and Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, supported the struggles of working class women with money and intervention with officials and often picketed with them. e ILGWU led an even larger strike, later named "The Great Revolt", of 60,000 cloakmakers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ladies%27_Garment_Workers%27_Union)

Local 25-Local 25 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), also known as the Ladies' Waist and Dressmakers Union, was chartered in 1905 and based in New York, New York.
WTUL or Womens Trade Union League- founded by William English Walling. WTUL was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women formed in 1903 to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important role in supporting the massive strikes in the first two decades of the twentieth century that established the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and in campaigning for women's suffrage among men and women workers. fter supporting a number of strikes in the first few years of its existence, the WTUL played a critical role in supporting the Uprising of the 20,000, the New York City and Philadelphia shirtwaist workers' strike, by providing a headquarters for the strike, raising money for relief funds, soup kitchens and bail for picketers, providing witnesses and legal defense for arrested picketers, joining the strikers on the picket line, and organizing mass meetings and marches to publicize the shirtwaist workers' demands and the sweatshop conditions they were fighting. Some observers made light of the upper-class women members of the WTUL who picketed alongside garment workers, calling them the "mink brigade". These distinctions split strikers from their upper-class benefactors as well: a contingent of strikers challenged Alva Belmont concerning her reasons for supporting the strike.
The strike was, however, less than wholly successful: Italian workers crossed the picket lines in large numbers and the strikers lacked the resources to hold out longer than the employers.
At this time the WTUL also began to work for legislative reforms, in particular the eight-hour day, the minimum wage and protective legislation. The WTUL was also active in demanding safe working conditions, both before and after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 in which 146 workers were killed.’(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Trade_Union_League)

Sweatshops- sweatshops were generally dim and claustrophobic tenement rooms where independent contractors “sweated” greenhorns –that is the newest immigrants- by working them more and more hours for ;less and less pay. The sweatshops represented a nadir of of the Industrial Revolution , a dark age of chaos between the eruption of manufacturing and the arrival of various forces-such as labor unions,