This is the story of one hundred and forty six human beings who perished needlessly in the worst industrial disaster in American history, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire.
It claimed the lives of one hundred and forty six human beings who perished needlessly and unspeakably in March of 1911. Ninety years have passed and still the ghosts of that terrible Saturday so long ago linger in the ether of the air, eating away at the conscience of all of us who believe in the sanctity of life and the pursuit of happiness.
March 25, 1911 was a mild, sunny day filled with the promise of Spring. For the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory located on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of what was then known as the Asch Building, it was just another day of drudgery and toil. The doors opened early to the immigrant women and men who needed the weekend work. Due to the fact that Saturday was not a regular work day, the doors leading to the fire-exits were not opened. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, felt such action would "keep the women busy at their machines". They themselves escaped the fire that would destroy so many lives, only adding more fuel to the tide of public outrage that followed the gruesome tragedy.
The fire began shortly after 4:30 p.m. in the cutting room on the eighth floor on the Greene Street side of the building. Only the staircase on this side had an exit that led to the roof. Fed by thousands of pounds of flammable fabric, the terrible blaze spread rapidly to the upper floors of the Greene Street side of the building. Most of the workers on the eighth and tenth floors escaped via the stairs or the one exit before it collapsed, killing many and blocking escape for even more. For those unfortunates on the ninth floor, their fates were sealed because the door to the fire exit was locked. Many, with their hair and clothes on fire, jumped to their deaths from open windows. For the fire department, the horror story that unfolded was compounded by the fact that although their equipment was the most sophisticated of its day, the ladders only reached up to the sixth floor. Fire-men watched helplessly as workers died before their very eyes and life nets broke when the desperate women jumped in groups of three and four.
Most of the victims were women, Italian and Jewish immigrants between the ages of thirteen and twenty-three. Their collective deaths took less than fifteen minutes and totaled more than any other fire in history except for that aboard the General Slocum in 1904. Ironically, the same police men who contained these women with billy-clubs and harsh words in the fall of 1909 during the first large scale strike of women workers in the country were the very same who on this cruel and terrible day prevented the trampling and desecration of their bodies as they lay battered and burned, some beyond recognition, on the pavement outside the blazing factory.
The Triangle Fire catastrophe stirred the conscience of a city that had long closed its eyes to the deplorable working conditions of the poor. Even the mighty pens of the muckrakers of the late nineteenth century, such as Ida Tarbell and Jacob Riis, had only scratched the surface of the need for a sense of public conscience and responsibility. No longer could anyone languish in indifference and two unsettling and irrevocable truths emerged from the smoldering rubble. The first was that the Triangle Shirtwaist deaths had occurred only because someone was too eager to make money to provide proper safe-guards and protection. Secondly, there arose an overpowering sense of collective guilt. Everyone (including the powers that be) demanded that something be done legally to protect the workers of the land.
"The Shirtwaist Kings", Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were indicted for manslaughter, first and second degree, in mid-April of 1911 and acquitted of all charges due to the fact that many thinkers of the day defended the right of shop owners to resist government safety regulation. In 1914 the two men were ordered to pay damages of $75.00 to each of the twenty three families who had sued them. A nine member Factory Investigating Commission set up by the New York State legislature gathered testimony and established the Bureau of Fire Investigation headed by Robert Wagner, Sr. and Alfred E. Smith. This gave the fire department additional powers to improve factory safety and marked the beginning of the "˜golden era of remedial factory legislation." The result was the passing of thirty-six new safety laws between 1911 and 1914.
Max Blanck and Isaac Harris got away with multiple murder in the eyes of the families who lost their loved ones and, in many cases, their only bread winner in a foreign land. Even the massive relief efforts sponsored by The American Red Cross and the Charity Organization Society could not alleviate the terrible repercussions of the tragedy. Blanck and Harris, as many other "sweatshop"owners of the day, shared no sense of responsibility for the people who worked for them. They made a fortune off the backs of immigrants manufacturing the symbol of American femininity epitomized by Charles Dana Gibson, the shirt-waist. The garment produced for mass sales became synonymous with the new, free twentieth century woman, becoming the "corporate" look of its day.
Workers organized under the leadership and inspiration of Samuel Gompers and Lillian Wald to become a part of The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Never again would such abuses be tolerated in a society that was legally bound to protect its workers. Still, a shadows lingers at twenty three Washington Place, and it persists despite the sunniest day in memory of all those who died so needlessly one terrible Saturday so long ago.
