On March 25, 1911, one of the most deadliest fires in American industrial history occurred at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City. The fire killed about 145 of the factories workers. The deaths could've been prevented easily but, due to not following safety procedures they weren't.
The Triangle factory was located in the top three floors of the Asch Building, on the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, in Manhattan. The factory was a true sweatshop that hired young women who were immigrants that worked in a cramped space at lines of sewing machines. Almost all of the girls who worked there were in their teens and did not speak any English. They worked 12 hours a day, every day. In 1911, the factory only had
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The owners of Triangle Shirtwaist, Blanck and Harris, already had a suspicious history of factory fires. The Triangle factory was burned twice in 1902, while their Diamond Waist Company factory also burned twice, in 1907 and 1910. It was as Blanck and Harris torched their workplaces on purpose, before business hours so they can collect the large fire-insurance policies. This was very a common practice in these times. Even though this wasn’t what cause the fired that occurred in 1911, it sure did help the tragedy happen. Blanck and Harris refused to install sprinkler systems and take other safety measures in case they needed to burn down their shops …show more content…
There were strikes held two years before the fire occurred to demand a higher pay and less hours. The Triangle Shirtwaist was one of few companies who resisted and paid off certain people to look the other way. On a Saturday afternoon, March 25th, 600 workers were at the factory when the fire began in a rag bin. The manager tried to put it out but it wasn't successful. As the fire grew so did panic. The workers all rushed to the elevator but it only held 12 people at a time and the operator can only make a couple of trips before it broke down due to the heat of the flames. Being desperate to escape the fire, the girls that were left behind waiting for the elevator decided to jump down the shaft to their deaths. The girls who fled to the stairwells also met awful demises–when they found the door at the bottom of the stairs were locked, many were burned alive. Workers and owners on the levels above the fire, escaped on the roof and jumped to other
Because they were poor immigrants who barely knew English, factory owners could easily take advantage of them. They use this to explain why America was so motivated by the fire, which helped push for industrial reforms. Other scholars focus on the horrible working conditions in the factory and the sensationalized newspaper stories and images to explain how this caused Americans to blame the factory owners for their poor treatment of workers. Americans’ outrage and blame of the owners helped increase support for reform. They agree that the Triangle fire added fuel to the Progressive movement and served as one of many pieces of evidence that helped in reforming labor laws.
There was no fire safety rules implied and forced and also there was doors that opened inwards so when they were all crammed in a small space trying to escape they couldn't open the door because there was to many people in the way of the door. There was one stairway they had but it lead down into a fenced in yard and the door to the yard was wooden so it would feed the fire even more. Those are some reasons why he could be responsible for the factory fire like the inadequate safety laws, but in contrast, the fire department could be also. The fire department didn't get there fast enough and they're ladders were too short.
When looking more closely at the structure of the building the most obvious design flaw was the fact that the exit doors opened to the inside. When fire exits have a design like this, it deters how fast large quantities of people can exit at any given time. The text highlighted mitigating tools that can reduce risk to people and their property and if these tools were utilized before this fire some individuals that lost their life that day would have been minimal if any at all. One of the mentionable tools is taxation and fiscal policies. The owners stated in multiple investigations that the cost was just
The factory owners were responsible for the triangle fire because, they failed to run fire drills, the had all the emergency exits locked and they failed to warn the people on the floor about the fire. The workers are also to blame for their lack of awareness and their failure to warn one another.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 was the deadliest workplace accident in New York history. Most of the workers in the factory were immigrants who came to America for a better future. Their dream was economic security, which they saw in America. Getting a job in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a desired position, even if the job consisted of fourteen hour work days, six days a week. At most, the workers would take home $2 a day.
The inferno then spread across the building within few minutes, causing a terrifying madness among the workers and eyewitnesses. The fire spread faster owing to the nature of the business that dealt with textiles. The clothing burn very fiercely and as such, caused the speedy spread of the fire within the building. As the fire was razing down everything on its path, many of the workers were caught therein, losing their lives. Moreover, many of the exit doors would be locked in the fear of workers stealing company materials.
The Triangle Factory Fire on March 25, 1911 killed 146 people. There could have been more precautions and backups in case of a fire. Usual tools that could be used for preventing a fire were absent in this tragedy. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were blamed for not supplying and making sure their factory had these fire precautions.
To determine this, many sources and ideas must be recognized and appointed. One of the ideas that has come to mind was that a cigarette butt from the workers who had secretly been smoking had made it's way into the cloth bin and, because of the highly flammable material the blouses were made of, it set the bin and the building ablaze. Another idea that has come to mind is that maybe the owners of the establishment, Max and Isaac, burned the building down on purpose, making this an even more interesting topic. Some of the evidence that has risen up from the possible dark truth below is that the doors leading out of the building on the ninth floor, where the doors were supposedly locked and/ or were designed to be pushed outwards instead of inwards. Max and Isaac claim that this was because of a theft concern, and that this would keep minimal thefts happening (Martin par 8).
On March 25, 1911, a fire started at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory that claimed the lives of one hundred and forty-six workers. As a result of the fire, trials and debates occurred that contended the factory owners right to control their business against their duty to implement safe working conditions for their employees. Despite the trial resulting in no charges for the business owners the triangle fire is responsible for stricter safety codes and brought attention on the labor movement. In order to fully understand the changes that resulted because of the shirtwaist fire, you must first know what life was life prior to the fire.
The owners are to blame for the deaths of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire because they promoted an unsafe working environment, also, never cared about the employees' health, and only made money for themselves. The owners, Max and Issac, did not care for their workers' safety. To start, Max Blanck and Issac Harris promoted an unsafe environment. For example, the “employers often locked doors” (Marrin 7). The employers and people in charge of the factory and company were not prepared.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was one such typical sweat shop. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, typically employed young Jewish immigrant girls who had come to the United States with their families in search of a better life for them and their loved ones. Instead, they encountered lives of relentless poverty and dismaying working conditions. Being immigrants who struggled with a new language and culture, the factory owners took advantage and made the working poor their ready
The women would had experienced anything from sexual harassment, rubbed up against or felt on, to being locked into a room until they had finished their shift . Often the bosses would refer to the young preteen or teenage girls as the “working girls” . The working conditions of the women and young children could only be described as slave conditions, one worker described her experience while working for the Triangle Waist Company, “[w]e were like slaves,’ complained one women. ‘You couldn’t pick your head up. You couldn’t talk.
Could the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory have been prevented? I am not going to answer that question just yet. Without assessing all of the information to prevent the making of unfounded accusations. First things first you may be asking yourself what a Triangle Shirtwaist is. A triangle shirtwaist is a type of blouse that many women wore in the early 1900's.
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.
The detrimental Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is considered to be one of the most tragic disasters in history. On March 25th, 1911, a fire broke out and killed 146 garment workers who were mostly women. These women worked countless hours with low wages and inhumane working conditions in a factory. Even though this event was tragic, the triangle shirtwaist fire helped to shape the new world for the better. The multitude of workers trapped within the inferno to their demise was the final straw for the mistreatment of America’s workers.