...guard women and children workers are completely justifiable, because women worked just as hard as men in dangerous and tough working environments, and children were made to work in positions not adequate for their anatomy, and logically needed to be protected also. The Massachusetts first annual report of its labor statistics bureau said “There is a peril to life and limb from unguarded machinery, and peril to health from lack of ventilation, and insufficiency of means of escape in case of fire, in many establishments…. These evils can only be prevented by detailed enactment.” Massachusetts hoped to pass the Factory Inspection Legislation which would protect workers by demanding factories have machine guarding, direction, elevator safety and adequate ventilation (U.S Department of Labor). But this legislation took years to pass, meanwhile detailed reports from the The Factory Inspector a journal that provided published accounts of industrial accidents. The journal report violent accounts of workers dying due to unprotected machinery. Four men died by being engulfed in streams of hot metal. Many...
Words: 936 - Pages: 4
...evidence of how the past can redefine present culture. Since the civil war, African Americans role within the nation has changed drastically from a slave to the President of the United States. Monumental cases like Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, along with mass protests across the United States; all influenced the civil rights of African Americans. Another case that shaped our civilization was from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Due to negligence of the factory owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, one hundred and forty-five people died in a factory fire because of inaccessibility to fire escapes. This devastation sparked outrage among civilians, and the government of the United States was forced to respond. In October, 1911, in the aftermath of the fire, New York State passed the Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law, requiring that factory owners install sprinkler systems….New York also set up the Factory Investigating Commission… and overhauled or enacted around three dozen laws dealing with factory...
Words: 1207 - Pages: 5
...“If I jump, my family will have a body to identify and bury, but if I stay in this room, there will be nothing left,” (Marrin 114). This terrible thought went through many young women’s, men’s, and even little girl’s heads as the flames grew and grew when three floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were on fire on March 25, 1911. Burning clothes fell on people’s heads due to the kerosene that was everywhere in the factory (Lieurance 12). The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was one of the most eventful and influential in New York’s and America’s history. The fire occurred on the top three floors of the ten story Asch Building, which was supposedly fireproof on the outside, but on the inside, not so much. Although devastating, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire positively influenced and changed many labor laws and fire safety regulations, making working conditions safer and more fair for future generations. Many immigrants coming to America in the early 1900s came for a better life. Getting a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was highly desired due to the nice building in which the factory was located (Zwonitzer). Most immigrants, even those as young as 14, worked to earn money to support their families in the new country (Zwonitzer). Once the immigrants arrived in America they started...
Words: 2465 - Pages: 10
...In today’s society, it is a common etiquette for businesses to keep 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,...
Words: 856 - Pages: 4
...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
...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
...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...
Words: 504 - Pages: 3
...In the Industrial War there lay a factory called The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory .The factory made blouses for women , that would make the women look tinier around the waist area so they could have more curvature to their body. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory also had a very bad tragedy in the early years of the factory which i will tell you about in a little bit. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was owned by two gentlemen named Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. The men opened the factory in 1900’s. The Factory was located on the corner of Greene St. ,and Washington Pl. in Manhattan.They factory had a majority of women working at the factory and a couple of men here and there. The Homestead Act was an act on how factory owners...
Words: 680 - Pages: 3
...In the early 1900s, people who worked in companies, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, came from different countries, mainly from Europe to New York City. These immigrants knew that by coming to the United States, they had a better chance of finding a job and were in charge of their own future. Meanwhile, men, women, and children, who worked for Triangle, knew they were not being treated fairly. However, even though labor conditions were horrifying, immigrants needed jobs desperately and felt like they had no choice. They had the option to confront their employer about cruelty, such as taking money from their paychecks for unreasonable reasons, but they knew at the end of the day they could be easily replaced. The staff of this factory...
Words: 1111 - Pages: 5
...Shirtwaist Factory Fire; Was is really an “accident?”- March 25th, 1911 It was a normal day in New York City, workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were going about their business as usual. As the work day came to an end, the bell rings, and workers grab their things and get ready to leave. Eva Harris, local seamstress, smells burning and instinctively shouts “fire!” Workers ring the tenth floor to warn them about the fire, instead of warning the ninth floor as well… workers scatter in panic; the ninth floor was never notified. As the fire approached the ninth floor, factory owner Isaac Harris rushed to them. However the door standing between him and the ninth floor was barricaded with a barrel or motor oil. The call to the fire station...
Words: 556 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 586 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 749 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 558 - Pages: 3
...Often when we experience a disaster that will set in motion the need for change. As we look back through history we come to realize that we have a tendency to make changes after a disaster has already occurred. We 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...
Words: 1968 - Pages: 8
...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...
Words: 1106 - Pages: 5
