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Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Essay

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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 …show more content…
Not only was the space jam packed making it difficult to get out, the barrels of water in the factory that were used for putting out fires were not filled regularly(The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911). Along with the irregularly filled barrels, there was also one rotting fire hose that was attached to a rusted valve. There was only one interior exit door that was very narrow and required single fire walking. One of the two doors in this exit was locked from the outside by the management of the company to make sure employees were not stealing lace or other materials from the factory, however it was a law that factory doors could not be locked during working hours(Triangle the Fire That Changed America). The large amount of people working that day also tried to cram into the elevator or ride on top of the cars resulting in too much weight for the elevator to function. The fire escapes leading to the outside of the factory could not hold much weight and did not reach the ground, which caused multiple girls to leap to their deaths. The fire escapes melted in the heat and became wreckage with the rest of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory while the firefighters ladders could not reach any further than the sixth floor(Triangle Shirtwaist Fire). The firefighters safety nets were also useless for rescue because they ripped as paper

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