Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist fire Disaster hit March 25, 1911 at 4:40 pm at the Triangle Shirt Waste Factory when it caught on fire by a cigarette bud or burning match. The employees were mainly young women and girls of Italian and Jewish decent and 146 died that day. The workers wanted out of the building but one of the doors was locked in the stairwell. Speculation was that Isaac Harris locked the door. Some of the women and girls jumped off the building and out the windows to trying to survive which was interfering with the firemen trying to put out the fire. When New York went through such horrible event new laws were put into place. The new laws are new safety and fire regulations, child labor laws and work compensation. Every
Triangle Shirtwaist Company was a main manufacturer who did not take kindly of the strike. They used police officers, to imprison the female workers on strike, while they paid the government officials to take the other girls away. On March, 25, while the workers worked, a fire began to start in the rag bin. A manager tried to put the fire out, but the fire spread rapidly and the hose did not work, due to the holes punched in the sides(Stein). As the fire escalated, the young women began to panic, and as the young women tried to escape on the elevator, they realized that the elevator could only hold 12 people, and the elevator broke down in the heat and flames.
Joseph Awe the owner of a pub in Harrisville WI. On September 11 2006 a fire was started at the pub while Awe was at home about 30 miles away. After extinguishing the fire, firefighters labeled Awe as a suspect and the fire was not listed as an accident. The insurance company that was handling the case hired a fire investigator to help determine if the fire was an accident. If the fire was deemed an accident the insurance company was liable to pay at least $200,000.
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.
Of the 142 lives the fire had claimed at least 125 of those people were woman or just mere teenagers. This fire was horrific as people from the street so women jumping from the bulding to their deaths in order to escape the fiery hell. Some bodies were so charred family members could only recognize them by the cloth threw wore and the trinkets they had. However, the owners are still to blame for this tragedy. Their lack of taking proper safety measures caused the death of 141 people.
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.
Frances Perkins, a survivor from the Shirtwaist Factory Fire quotes “Moved by this sense of stricken guilt, we banded ourselves together to find a way by law to prevent this kind of disaster.” Frances Perkins became secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and this quote said by Perkins “something must be done. We’ve got to turn this into some kind of victory, some kind of constructive action,” helped new workplace safety standards into law in the state of New York. The benefits that I would like the audience to see is how workplace safety is important by learning about the history of regulation, OSHA, and workers compensation.
The Triangle Fire Tragedy The fire in the Triangle Waist Company was the “deadliest workplace tragedy in the history of New York City” (Argersinger, p.16). Immigrant young women, some of whom did not speak English, were employees in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory to support their families despite the poor wages and the dangerous work conditions. In this period, progressive movements were occurring in order to reduce the impacts of the difficult conditions brought by industrialization, balance the wealth between the rich and poor, and make the workplace more efficient. After watching how several garment workers, mostly women, reach their deaths, America was never the same in many ways, affecting the development of the Progressive Era and
This gives another reason why Immigrants began to come to New York. At least in New York they’d be given freedom and wages wouldn’t be as low either. This gave them another reason to migrate to New York, giving the people and opportunity of a lifetime to have somewhat better opportunities then they did back where they came
In April 2013, Matthew Yglesias, an American Economics Journalist proposed the people of Bangladesh would not appreciate having stronger safety standards in their country because it would cause undue harm economically. He asserts Bangladesh should have different lower standards for safety because they are a poorer country. Most of the people involved in the New York tragedy of 1911 also known as the Triangle Fire, would not agree with Matthew Yglesias on his assertion that lower economic status would be an indication of lower safety standards in factories. Namely, the workers, the union leaders, the progressive reformers and the political leaders would all vote for higher standards commiserate with the United States. The only ones who would not argue with Yglesias are the owners of the Triangle Factory with their vested interest, their own problems of multiple fires and accusations of safety neglect.
Though the suspect was found, people in the area saw shutting down the city as unnecessary. It caused thousands of kids to miss school, economic costs issues linked with shutting down public transportation, and many of the working class people who need their wages were not paid that
Causes and Consequences of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire, killing nearly one hundred and fifty workers. It has since been referred to as the “worst workplace disaster in New York City history until 9/11.” The corruption of Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, Triangle owners, and Tammany Hall permitted the horrendous working conditions in the factory which ultimately caused the Triangle fire and consequent one hundred and forty-six deaths.
People also went on protest for these victims and their losses this put their lives in danger, but they did this even with the dangerous circumstances even then they walked off from their protest and went to help the families. “The town’s bus drivers, who were on strike that day, walked off their picket lines and went back to work. Bakeries went into overdrive production, hospitals staffed up, and many of the townspeople opened their homes and offered their beds to the ‘plane people. ’”(Gander) In many situations humanity takes many forms and is still their in a time of
In a capitalist environment, at least where corporations have been concerned, the government should neither intervene or regulate the open market. In fact, the essence of the capitalist economic system is to create an environment where the free market would be able to dictate itself. Regardless of the system’s original intentions, there have been cases globally and throughout time where government intervention has been necessary — cases where the general public itself has been affected negatively by corporate abuse of the market. For instance, the United States’ public-corporate relationship throughout the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Throughout this period, which was known as the Progressive Era, industrial America
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.
In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company employed mostly women to make shirts. The working conditions in this factory were much the same as other factories at this time, that is to say, unsafe. The women had only one exit which became crucially important when in 1911 a fire started and there was only that exit, an elevator, which became completely overwhelmed, and an ill-prepared fire escape that became strained to the point that it broke. In the end, 145 people lay dead, all but 23 of whom were women, and half were teenagers. This tragedy put a spotlight of attention on the plight of women workers and led to the adoption of labor laws that not only imposed strict regulations on factory owners, but actually enforced them.