Essay On Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

The Owner’s Building The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, had a historic fire to happen in one of their buildings, which was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. This fire was one of the worst fires in New York with a total of 146 people that died. The fire started supposedly under a table when someone threw a cigarette butt under the table which then caught on fire. The owners on the other hand were being accused of arson because Blanck and Harris owned other types of buildings that also caught on fire.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Factory was partly burned or burned down twice in 1902. Another Factory they worked in was their Diamond Waist Company Factory which just like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Factory partly burned and almost burned down twice, in 1907 and 1910. There are suspicions that Blanck and Harris purposely torched their factory building before work hours opened so they could receive the large fire insurance policies they had purchased for every building. Although there is evidence that they weren’t the cause of the 1911 fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Factory. Both Blanck and Harris refused to install water sprinklers systems within the building and take other safety

Imagine being an immigrant with no money to provide for yourself or your family. You have to turn to work in a Shirtwaist Factory in order to make a living. While working inside of the Shirtwaist Factory you notice there are many injuries that occur from the machinery, you are being lowly paid for working extended hours, including holidays, and the bosses lock the exit doors to prevent theft by the workers. Many of the immigrant women became upset and decide to go on strike, for better working conditions. As a result the owners of the company ignore the women's strike causing the women to have to go back to working unfair jobs until the fire occurs.

One of the main reasons the fire took such a psychological toll on the New Yorkers was because of the workers jumping to there deaths. One witness even remarked the event saying quote 'I know a new sound a terrible sound the sound of a body hitting the pavement". The inferno was also not an uncommon occurrence the triangle shirt was burned before the tragedy to collect insurance money. Knowing this information, many Jewish and women workers went on strike to secure improved working conditions. There strike in fact proved successful with the New York state legislature creating the Factory Investigating Commission.

On March 25,1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City was the deadliest business tragedy in the history of New York. Every morning 100,000 people would head off to work, some of the girls would be as young as ten years old. In Asch Building on the 10th floor was where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was located. The people had to work up to 14 hours a day with a salary of 2 dollars. Out of the 100,000people there were 500 blouse makers.

The triangle shirtwaist company was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris and was located on the Greene Street in Manhattan. Most of the workers were teenaged girls that worked long hours daily. Most were immigrants and knew little English. In March 25, 1911 a fire was initiated at the top of the Asch Building where the company was located. How the fire started is still a mystery.

At this time in the eastern United States labor systems and the use of immigrant labor

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.

There's a high probability the extra three minutes would've allowed the workers to reach the roof before the blaze took their lives. This speculation points to the perplexing reasons as to why the owners didn't take the fire as seriously as they should've (Drehle 160). The fire in 1911 was not the owners' first, not long after they opened the factory in 1902, their was a fire one morning before the workers got there. And again a half a year later, another Triangle factory fire occurred at the very same time of day in an eerily similar fashion. The owners collected over thirty-two thousand dollars in damages from the insurance company, and oddly enough, both fires occurred at the end of the busy season which for business owners usually meant an excess of inventory (Drehle 161-62).

“Had the department been able to get up close to the church, water could have been thrown on the roof, but as it was, they were unable to get within striking distance and there were no ladders of sufficient length available.” There have been so many fires it is hard to count them all. To start out with, the fire that took the Baptist church is one. Next, there is the Methodist church, which the same fire took a livery barn also. Lastly, there is the Mental Health Institute, in which the fire destroyed part of the building.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire forced politicians and the public to face the consequences of inaction; changed views regarding public and state responsibility for worker’s safety and caused profound and rapid changes to occupational safety laws. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was located at No. 23-29 Washington Place at the corner of Greene Street not far from the popular Washington Square Park. The factory was housed in the well-built ten story Asch Building and occupied the top three floors. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was owned by Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, and produced popular collared, puffy-sleeved shirts.

In the eighth grade, my friends and I joined a program called History Day, completely on a whim. We had no experience and we barely knew what the program was, but we were very excited to try something new. When we got started on our project, we decided to do a performance on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. Out of the five of us, not one person had done a historical performance before, and so with no experience we began our research. As we learned everything there was to learn about this event, we became more and more passionate about the topic.

The article "The Factory Girl 's Danger", Written by Miriam Finn Scott, discusses the danger of working in a progressive era factory in a skyscraper typical in the New York area. Referenced in her paper is the tragedy known as The Triangle Factory Fire in which 146 workers, mostly young girls, "were charred bodies heaped up behind doors they had vainly tried to beat down, or were unrecognizable pulp upon the street far below"(10,Scott). Miriam also goes further into detail pertaining to the lives of 2 sisters one of whom was killed in the fire. Her article on the triangle factory fire brought the public 's attention to the atrocious conditions these women worked in, Furthermore, it shined a personal light on what otherwise would just been

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, New York City, 1911 this was a high-rise building. Someone threw a cigarette into a bin containing strap metal material, causing it to ignite, killed 250 employees on the ninth floor” (Sturzenbecker, Adams, and Burnside, 2012, p.9-10). This was a look at a fires that injured and killed occupants. The fire service as a whole has come a long way in life safety and property conservation. The fire service achieved this by adopting rules and codes and improving the fire protection systems.

According to Section 217 of the New York Worker’s Compensation Act of 1910, employers were required by law to compensate their employees if a personal injury were to result from their occupation. However, this law only applied to specific types of dangerous labor, including “demolition, blasting, tunneling, electrical construction, and railroad operation.” In 1910, making shirtwaists was not considered a dangerous activity, so victims’ families of the fire could not expect to receive any compensation from the accident. The Charity Organization Society of the City of New York Red Cross Emergency Relief Committee published a report, showing a detailed account of everyone they gave aid to.