...What happened at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911? The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is one of the deadliest, horrific workplace accidents in the history of New York City. At the end of the half of terror, 146 people were dead. According to the documentary the fire which started on the eighth floor spread to the 9th floor where the Triangle Shirtwaist Workers were getting ready to leave for the day. The workers have no Idea there was a fire raging through the building until it was too late for most of them to evacuate the building. The owners, on the other hand, made it out the building alive through the rooftop. The triangle fire’s tragedy was compounded by the hazardous working environment in the factory and consequently lack of emergency preparedness. According to Berger (2011), Workers unraveled a hose from a stairwell fixture, but no water came out. The building had no sprinklers, nor had the factory ever held fire drills. More disheartening is that the doors in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory only opened inward, therefore when the...
Words: 1304 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 1784 - Pages: 8
...the shirtwaist business. That woman was Clara Lemlich and she was only 23 years old when she initiated the strike. She and her supporters protested for over two months on the streets of New York, until certain textile-manufacturing factories finally agreed to fairer income and decent hours for the employees. However, this wasn’t entirely a success as many companies refused to agree to the terms, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. As a result, a year later, 146 workers employed at the Factory perished in a tragic fire due to a lack of safety preparation, including...
Words: 1082 - Pages: 5
...The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 was the deadliest work related accident until the terrorist attacks on 9/11, ninety years later. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a large sweatshop run in New York City. This business was run in the top three floors of a ten story building(Workers in the Industrial Age). This fire on Saturday March 25, 1911 caused 146 people to die from multiple causes such as suffocation, burning alive, and jumping to their deaths. All this destruction still has no definite determined cause but is believed to be caused by a cigarette that got thrown into a wastebasket with highly flammable material. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire contributed to the improvements of today's quality of working places...
Words: 890 - Pages: 4
...The deadliest workplace accident in New York City's history on March 25th, 1911 was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.(1) Which killed 146 of 500 employees, mostly young female immigrants from Europe working long hours for low wages. The young women died from unsafely inadequate, precautions, and lack of fire escapes. The ten-story building known as Brown Building in which the fire occurred was owned by Max Blanca and Issa Harris. Housing for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was on the top three floors. Triangle Shirtwaist employees worked hard from 7a.m. until 8p.m. with one thirty minute break for lunch.(2) Subcontractors paid employees extremely low wages which employees would work long hours and many worked six days a week in order...
Words: 288 - Pages: 2
...Triangle Factory Fire safety issues. The triangle factory fire was one of the most tragic events in New York, up until September 11th of 2001. 146 bodies were identified, any others were burnt in the fire or too massacred to tell who it was. No one knows exactly how the fire was started. There are theories, but for it to have gone the way it did, the conditions of the building, and the people, couldn't have been safe. The women who worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, had apparently been asking for a wage increase, (then only making 6$ an hour.) and better fire safety. Only their pay was increased, and the hazardous way things worked in the Asch building pursued. Doorways were only able to have one person go down at...
Words: 560 - Pages: 3
...sweatshops as 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...
Words: 2693 - Pages: 11
...Triangle Shirtwaist Factory The American labor force was vastly different in the 1900s than it is now. The industrial revolution opened up thousands of jobs in an industry that had never existed before. Due to the infancy of these jobs it was a generally unregulated market by the government. There were essentially no laws protecting laborers at work, no minimum wage, and no child labor laws. Employment at will was the dogma for employee-employer relationships and this inherently favored the employer in all aspects. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was one of the largest garment producers in New York City at the time. The garment industry primarily was made up of women and children. This group had never traditionally worked before because labor male driven. This allowed for employers to take advantage of women and children with maximum hours for minimal wages in unsafe working conditions without any repercussions. Unions were despised by business owners and they would hire scabs to fill in for any workers who went on strike against the company. The police and elected officials were benefactors of the titans of industry so they did not see any need to help the workers in the garment industry until a tragic fire. The specific conditions of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and the equipment contributed to the large loss of life in the fire. There were no laws mandating that the owners provided its employees with fire exits or adequate machinery. First, equipping all...
Words: 761 - Pages: 4
...BUS2100-101 February 05, 2016 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Research/ Analyzation The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire was on March 25, 1911. It was one of the worst tragedies New York City has ever had it caused the demise of 146 workers. The company was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Hariss. It started out as a small business and by 1900 it had expanded quickly. They relocated the business to the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the new ten- story Ash Building. The company employed around 500 employees. Most of the employees were immigrant women. Most of the women died from the fire or they perished from jumping from the burning building because the ladders on the fire trucks could only reach the seventh floor. The factory managers kept all of the doors locked to prevent employee theft and to keep the workers from leaving. The building only had one fire escape that collapsed during the rescue. Long tables and large machines trapped many of the people. In my opinion, the managers should not have locked the doors just to save the company money and time. This kind of behavior from the company and managers was unethical behavior. Human life should always take precedence over saving and making money. The company should have taken employee health and safety more serious before the fire. The only legal consequences for the managers were attorney fees. Civil lawsuits against the managers were filed, they proved to be pointless. No money was ever collected from...
Words: 630 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 2293 - Pages: 10
...Audrey Glasgow FOS 2530 Research Project It is 1645 hours on March 25, 2014 (actual year of incident is 1911), and Public Safety Communications has dispatched fire units to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, located in the Asch Building at 23 through 29 Washington Place, Manhattan, NY, which is on the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, for a report of a building on fire. As your agency’s Fire and Arson Investigator on duty, you are dispatched to the scene. Fire suppression units arrived on the scene finding heavy smoke and fire showing from the eighth floor. Multiple fatalities have been reported. Coming on to a scene with so much blood shed is never easy, but the job has to get done to try to bring justice to the crime committed. We all risk our lives in some way form or fashion; I just do it more than others. Upon arrival I am getting as much information as I can so that I can task fully assets the scene as it needs to be. First, I would recognize the problem to be able to determine the origin, cause, and responsibility. Second, I would define the problem by going into a thorough detailed investigation of info given to me and my team. Third, collect data not limited to drawing a diagram and or taking photos of the scene, physical evidence, witness statements, and reports. Finally, I would analyze the fire pattern, structural damage and find the fuel source or any factor that plays into determining the correct point of origin; only going off of facts and investigators...
Words: 1690 - Pages: 7
...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...
Words: 1097 - Pages: 5
...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...
Words: 1433 - Pages: 6
...The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was one of the greatest tragedies of the progressive era. All started with the labor movement originated from poor working conditions in those years. Workers were usually overexploited and underpaid. One of the companies that more was noticed was the factory of Triangle Shirtwaist located in the ninth and tenth of Asch Building (NYC). The company, under the ownership of Max Black and Isaac Harris, produced blouses known as shirtwaists. The company usually hired young immigrant women paying between 7 and 12 dollars for working 9 hours each day of the week. The working conditions in the factory were difficult. The female workers had to work as fast as possible and without making mistakes or even being able...
Words: 365 - Pages: 2
...Triangle Fire V. Rana Plaza Disaster Unsafe conditions in the garment industry can lead to a catastrophe. In March 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught on fire, which lead to the loss of 145 innocent lives. A similar event happened 102 years later. In April 2013 at Dhaka, Bangladesh, Rana Plaza factory building collapsed killing 1100 workers. These two events have similar yet different safety aspects that contribute to the garment industry regulations. The most important similarity between the Triangle and Rana Plaza disasters is that they did not follow safety regulations. In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, someone dropped a lighted cigarette which caused the fire. The only people that were alerted to evacuate were the factory...
Words: 441 - Pages: 2
