History Of The Triangle Shirtwaist Factor Fire Of 1911

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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

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