One of the biggest fire tragedies in the 1900’s was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factor fire in 1911. The factory was a very dangerous environment to work in. There were no law that protected the laborers from the unsafe work environment. The factory workers were mostly immigrants from Europe. Also at this time there were no laws making the businesses have fire escape plans, or have any fire protection equipment. Fire drill, fire escapes, sprinkler systems, and forty-eight hour work weeks may seem so common, but if it wasn’t for the fires that broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the early 1900’s, there might not be fire and labor laws like there are today. The triangle shirtwaist factor was a clothes making facilities in downtown Manhattan. …show more content…
There were no guards over the belts that drove the sewing machines, the ventilation was terrible, and the working environment was very unsanitary (Schaefer 8). The factory hired over 500 immigrants to work in the top three floors of the Asch Building. It was a very cramped workplace and with bad ventilation the air didn’t move much so it was extremely hot. The young women were requires to work a minimum of 12 hour per day, every day. They earned a whopping wage of 15 dollars per week which was barely enough to get by (History). Many referred to these wages as “starvation wages” because it barely gave them enough money to buy food and clothes for their families (Marsico 14). The Triangle Shirtwaist factory was not at all clean. With the factory not being sanitary many of the workers would get sick. If a worker was to get sick they couldn’t afford to not go to work so they would keep going to working and the sickness would spread to all the other workers in the factory. The workers didn’t have any control over their wages or hours spent working. If a worker whined about their low wage or the long hours spent working they would be fired, and the owners would hire a new worker. Most of the time the workers didn’t get any time off for breaks or even going to the bathrooms. It wasn’t just young women who had to work in the harsh factory conditions. Children also worked in the factory because their families need
It was later discovered that the fire had probably started when a worker disposed a cigarette or match into a rag bin containing three hundred pounds of thin, oxygen-rich, cotton fabric. It was also estimated that there was a total of more than one ton of those cotton scraps in the upper three floors of the factory. “In that brief span, the fire did more killing than any other workplace disaster in New York City history up to that time, or for ninety years afterward.” It was considered “the worst industrial fire in American history.” The fire was one of the most important and biggest factors in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Most of the people who were working in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were on a strike before the fire for working rights and safety precautions. If the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory followed the safety precautions the strike was proposing, the fire could have been prevented, and would have saved many lives. According to source 5, the doors were locked, long wooden tables became obstacles, and boxes crowded the exit. All of that could have easily been prevented. Also, higher class people were also involved in the strike which made it bigger and more popular to people.
Despite the death and destruction it caused, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire ultimately benefited America by opening the eyes of mistreated factory workers and inspiring them to fight for better working conditions. Though it was unbeknownst at the time, the fire would inspire mistreated workers to rise out of the ashes and work tirelessly not for a factory, but for their own wellbeing. The history, the fire, and the trial that are all connected to the Triangle Shirtwaist Company are the events that led to the exploration for better working conditions. While we may not wish to remember all of the suffering the conflagration caused, we see its imprint it left on society whenever we see someone at work. This just imprint is one of safety.
ER #3 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Emily Refici SUNY American History Mrs. Paventi Liverpool High School The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a catastrophic event that occurred in 1911, remains an important moment in American industrial history. This tragedy, which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers, predominantly young immigrant women, highlighted the dangerous working conditions they faced in the rapidly growing garment industry of the time. Laissez-faire - a political French expression referring to governments' resistance to meddle with the functioning of the market economy, is illustrated in this as there was no government involvement concerning worker safety. The disaster served as a wake-up call for the need to prioritize
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire The Fire And Its Causes The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was one of New Yorks deadliest work place fires. It happened on March 25th, 1911 and would end up destroying the upper three floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Many people would die from being burned alive or jumping out of the building trying to escape the fire thinking they could maybe survive the fall. This fire would take many lives approximately one hundred and forty six people. Out of the one hundred and forty six people, one hundred and twenty six people were young women who worked at the factory.
After the tragedy of the fire there was public outcry for reforms that would help to prevent this kind of travesty from happening again. Fallowing after the fire building codes were more strictly checked and maintained, employees were not allowed to lock their workers inside of the factories, and child labor laws would also eventually be established through the tragedy of the fire and other cases of yellow journalism. Overall, the late 1800s and the early 1900s was a time that saw many different social reforms and journalistic endeavors to help those less fortunate, but it was also a time plagued by poverty and misfortune for the working
According to the History.com Staff (2009), Blanck and Harris had purposely burned down two of their previous buildings to collect the larger amount of money from the fire-insurance policies they had bought. Even though Blanck and Harris did not burn down the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, they still played a huge part in the fire. Since they burned down their own building so they could gain money, Blanck and Harris did not have any precautions that would help prevent a fire from happening. However, they did not have to have any precautions because of the laws about building safety at that time.
Automatic sprinklers, properly working fire escapes, and fire proof receptacles were among the recommendations for the businesses to instill. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory could have been prevented and more lives could have been saved if there were fireproof receptacles in the factory and were properly emptied. The fire spread so quickly trapping many inside. An article from the New York Times states “what burned so quickly and disastrously for the victims were shirtwaists, hanging on lines above tiers of workers, sewing machines placed so closely together that there was hardly aisle room for the girls between them, and shirtwaist trimmings and cuttings which littered the floors above the eighth and ninth stories” (141 men, 1911). The trimmings that laid among the floor is what caused the fire to spread so rapidly.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurred on March 25th, 1911 in New York City, and flabbergasted the citizens of the US by showing them the brutal consequences of the way that factory workers were being treated at the time. The triangle factory fire was the deadliest industrial disaster to have ever occurred in the city at the time that it happened. Located on the top three floors of the Asch building, the factory was one of the largest producers of the popular women’s shirtwaist blouse, and became a martyr for employee rights after 1911. Because of its location in what was considered to be one of the most progressive cities in the world and its adjacency to some of the most influential people in the country, the triangle shirtwaist factory
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire proved to be tragic because
The factory offered high pay, but desired hard work in a poor conditioned area. This left many factory girls very sick, and almost causing them to die. Many girls started to protest, forming the petition.
In 1911, one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history occurred when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers. It is one of the most remembered incidents since the deaths were largely preventable. Most victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors within the factory building. While the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire did result in a new legislation for safety in the work place, it was not the most important result. The most important result was the institution of the process to enforce pre-existing legislation regarding worker safety and protection in the workplace along with the laws that followed.
In spite of factory owners and their lobbying, New York state legislature moved incredibly quickly providing some of the necessary reforms. They created a board to oversee working conditions and implemented several laws dealing with everything from fire escapes, to sanitation. These were specifically designed to combat issues that had caused deaths in the Triangle Fire. Things such as locked doors, wider aisles, regulations concerning allocation of flammable materials. Working hours and certain occupations were also limited in an effort to protect women and children in the workforce.
The working conditions were hazardous and many men, women, and children died from accidents that would happen with the machinery. “If the English worker died of starvation or was injured by accident in the mills, it mattered not to the employer, for he was not legally liable, and the worker’s place could be supplied from among the thousands ready to work for even a bare subsistence.” Men and women would have to work hard for long hours and receive only a low wage. Adult men were paid more than women or children, but their wages were still not enough to support a
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a devastating fire that killed 146 girls in New York City (Leap for Life, Leap for Death). At this time, citizens of New York were furious and demanded that the government do something to prevent future tragedies. The government responded and the reforms that the government made, it changed the future of New York industry. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, one of history’s deadliest fires, came as a result of outrageously unsafe working conditions, led to a high death toll and injury total, but, ultimately resulted in reforms that helped safeguard future factory workers.