Research Paper On Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire

Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire The Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire that occurred in New York City on March 25, 1911, remains as one of the most important events in the history of United States due to the aftermath as well as being considered “the beginning of a modern safety movement.” This fire took the lives of 146 people, most of them being immigrant women, very few men, and young girls around the age of sixteen. The fire led to improvements, and a movement against unsafe working conditions in factories located in New York and in other factories throughout the United States. It also became the main cause for workplace safety regulations to be investigated on both the state and federal level. The building that was owned by

The strike spread to the city's other shirtwaist Factories, over the next few weeks and local newspapers referred to the general strike as the "uprising of the ten thousand". Surely, government officials, the media, and the public split into two camps with unions, labor organizations, and blue collar workers supporting the strikers while businesses and industrial leaders condemned them. Although the manufacturers tried a number of strategies to break the strike including mass arrests and the use of thugs to beat and threaten the workers, public judgment appeared to reside with labor. In February of 1910 the opposing groups reached a settlement, which gave the strikers a bit of a wage increase. Although the strikers thought they had gained a shorter workweek and better working conditions, no changes were actually made. For example, union demands for better fire safety were not

A committee of 25 people, involving Frances Perkins and Henry Stimson—who later became cabinet members in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration—was created as a first step in establishing a Bureau of Fire Prevention. A nine-member Factory Investigating Commission, overseen by state senators Alfred E. Smith. the Democratic presidential candidate in 1928), Robert W. Wagner, and union leader Samuel Gompers, worked from 1911 to 1914 to investigate fire safety as well as other conditions affecting the health and wellbeing of factory workers. In 1912 the New York State Assembly enacted legislation that required installation of automatic sprinkler systems in buildings over seven stories high that had more than 200 people working above the seventh floor. Legislation also provided for fire drills and the installation of fire alarm systems in factory buildings over two stories high that employed 25 people or more above the first floor. Additional laws mandated that factory waste should not be permitted on factory floors but instead should be deposited in fireproof receptacles. Because of the bodies found in the open elevator shafts of the Asch Building, legislation was enacted that required all elevator shafts to be