...It was near closing time in the Asch Building on March 25, 1911 when the flames began. Within 18 minutes 146 people were dead. The fourth largest industrial disaster in United States history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is remembered today as a tragic incident not only because of all the deaths but because of the fact that they were preventable. The death of 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, would have been preventable if the owners had followed regulatory precautions to ensure that their workers had accessible exit paths and a set plan of action in case of such incidents. From this horrendous inferno arose public outcry for justice and worker safety reform that led to the transformation of the labor code of New York and...
Words: 1784 - Pages: 8
...buildings have political and historical significance. The sites range from being the birthplace of the New Deal or George Washington’s favorite hangout tavern. Some buildings have more political significance than others. For example, the Brown Building housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. In 1911, a brief factory fire would shed light on the cruel working environments endured by workers. The history of the fire and building has a lifetime impact on the workplace and employer standards. The Shirtwaist Factory fire played a significant role as a catalyst for labor reforms. The Triangle Waist Company, founded in the early twentieth century by Isaac Harris and Max...
Words: 1097 - Pages: 5
...worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were women. Very young women. Many of these individuals were newly arrived immigrants who were overworked, underpaid, often underaged and underprivileged. The rampant abuse of these workers was especially prevalent at this particular company because the owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were greedy. They saw their empire beginning to crumble due to changing trends in fashion and fierce rivalries among competitors. As a result, they decided to push their workers to be more efficient with less compensation. Bathroom breaks became nonexistent and water breaks were unheard of. These 14 hour work days that spanned 6 days a week were a monstrosity. Unfortunately,...
Words: 863 - Pages: 4
...one-hundred and forty six times, one chime for each of the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. A fire that had taken place over one-hundred years ago is, to this day, one of the most horrific events up until the bombing of the World Trade Center. The Brown Building of New York University that stands on the corner of Greene street and Washington place in Washington Square of Greenwich Village was formerly known as the ‘Asch Building’, and on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Leading up to the fire, 1911 was a time that women were not permitted to vote, and sweatshop labor was the driving force behind the garment industry in New York City. In only eighteen...
Words: 1567 - Pages: 7
...What happened at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911? The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is one of the deadliest, horrific workplace accidents in the history of New York City. At the end of the half of terror, 146 people were dead. According to the documentary the fire which started on the eighth floor spread to the 9th floor where the Triangle Shirtwaist Workers were getting ready to leave for the day. The workers have no Idea there was a fire raging through the building until it was too late for most of them to evacuate the building. The owners, on the other hand, made it out the building alive through the rooftop. The triangle fire’s tragedy was compounded by the hazardous working environment in the factory and consequently lack of emergency preparedness. According to Berger (2011), Workers unraveled a hose from a stairwell fixture, but no water came out. The building had no sprinklers, nor had the factory ever held fire drills. More disheartening is that the doors in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory only opened inward, therefore when the...
Words: 1304 - Pages: 6
...New York City occurred. 146 women and teenage girls died in a fire that broke out on the top three floors of the ten-story work building that the Triangle Shirtwaist Company shared with other businesses. The fire was likely started with a cigarette bud being dropped, and the fire quickly grew with all the clothing and material to burn on. The young women tried to escape without the accommodation of a safe and appropriate exit. There was one flimsy fire exit staircase that quickly buckled under the pressure of dozens and dozens of women trying to run down it and one working elevator out of five that functioned enough to make four trips before the tragedy ended. Women...
Words: 558 - Pages: 3
...Reform That Triangle! The Industrial Revolution launched the world into a new time of machines and cities. Change happened so quickly, nothing could keep up with it, not even the governments. Consequently, there was a lack of regulations and laws. This absence of procedures led to one of the worst disasters in United States history—the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. In our textbook, we learned about labor reforms and how they were created, however we were not given any specific examples of events that directly affected this. These are the details on one such example. On March 25th, 1911, a fire spread through the upper floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s Factory, sending laborers into a frenzied panic. “In front of me I saw flames on the outside of the windows shooting up. The flames were climbing up from the 8th floor”(http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/). At the end of the day, more than 140 people perished in the...
Words: 504 - Pages: 3
...The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 was the deadliest work related accident until the terrorist attacks on 9/11, ninety years later. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a large sweatshop run in New York City. This business was run in the top three floors of a ten story building(Workers in the Industrial Age). This fire on Saturday March 25, 1911 caused 146 people to die from multiple causes such as suffocation, burning alive, and jumping to their deaths. All this destruction still has no definite determined cause but is believed to be caused by a cigarette that got thrown into a wastebasket with highly flammable material. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire contributed to the improvements of today's quality of working places...
Words: 890 - Pages: 4
...The deadliest workplace accident in New York City's history on March 25th, 1911 was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.(1) Which killed 146 of 500 employees, mostly young female immigrants from Europe working long hours for low wages. The young women died from unsafely inadequate, precautions, and lack of fire escapes. The ten-story building known as Brown Building in which the fire occurred was owned by Max Blanca and Issa Harris. Housing for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was on the top three floors. Triangle Shirtwaist employees worked hard from 7a.m. until 8p.m. with one thirty minute break for lunch.(2) Subcontractors paid employees extremely low wages which employees would work long hours and many worked six days a week in order...
Words: 288 - Pages: 2
...New York, and one of the deadliest in US history. No one knew that the tiny spark of a cigarette would cause 146 deaths in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The negligence of proper fire safety equipment, poor building design, absence of an appropriate fire escape, and substandard evacuation routine caused innocent lives to wither in the inferno. Disregarding proper safety measures had a resounding effect in the tragedy. As Abramowitz was taking his coat and hat from a nearby peg, he noticed the fire. The fire that would ultimately burn and destroy the factory. Dinah Lipschitz, a worker at Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, tried desperately to alert the staff above her...
Words: 674 - Pages: 3
...The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that occurred in 1911 was a huge tragedy and led to discussion of why safety regulations are important. The girls couldn’t escape because the made assumptions about the moral character of the works and locked the doors that led to the fabric so the workers didn’t steal any. The fire killed 148 people because there was no escape route; so most of the people either jumped out the window or burned in the fire. If there had been safety regulations in the factory then there would have been fire escape doors like there are now in this generation. These immigrants came to America to work, so they could make their own American Dream possible. The American Dream wasn’t possible for the factory workers, because the safety regulations prohibited them from being happy at work. The American Dream for them was to be able to go to work and feel safe and secure in their workplace. Safety regulations in the factory would have allowed the workers to have the American Dream of being comfortable and safe in their work place, live the pursuit of happiness, and want to continue living and working in America. By having safety...
Words: 988 - Pages: 4
...BUS2100-101 February 05, 2016 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Research/ Analyzation The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire was on March 25, 1911. It was one of the worst tragedies New York City has ever had it caused the demise of 146 workers. The company was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Hariss. It started out as a small business and by 1900 it had expanded quickly. They relocated the business to the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the new ten- story Ash Building. The company employed around 500 employees. Most of the employees were immigrant women. Most of the women died from the fire or they perished from jumping from the burning building because the ladders on the fire trucks could only reach the seventh floor. The factory managers kept all of the doors locked to prevent employee theft and to keep the workers from leaving. The building only had one fire escape that collapsed during the rescue. Long tables and large machines trapped many of the people. In my opinion, the managers should not have locked the doors just to save the company money and time. This kind of behavior from the company and managers was unethical behavior. Human life should always take precedence over saving and making money. The company should have taken employee health and safety more serious before the fire. The only legal consequences for the managers were attorney fees. Civil lawsuits against the managers were filed, they proved to be pointless. No money was ever collected from...
Words: 630 - Pages: 3
...left,” (Marrin 114). This terrible thought went through many young women’s, men’s, and even little girl’s heads as the flames grew and grew when three floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were on fire on March 25, 1911. Burning clothes fell on people’s heads due to the kerosene that was everywhere in the factory (Lieurance 12). The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was one of the most eventful and influential in New York’s and America’s history. The fire occurred on the top three floors of the ten story Asch Building, which was supposedly fireproof on the outside, but on the inside, not so much. Although devastating, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire positively influenced and changed many labor laws and fire safety regulations, making working conditions safer and more fair for future generations. Many immigrants coming to America in the early 1900s came for a better life. Getting a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was highly desired due to the nice building in which the factory was located (Zwonitzer). Most immigrants, even those as young as 14, worked to earn money to support their families in the new country (Zwonitzer). Once the immigrants arrived in America they started...
Words: 2465 - Pages: 10
...Shirtwaist Factory Fire; Was is really an “accident?”- March 25th, 1911 It was a normal day in New York City, workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were going about their business as usual. As the work day came to an end, the bell rings, and workers grab their things and get ready to leave. Eva Harris, local seamstress, smells burning and instinctively shouts “fire!” Workers ring the tenth floor to warn them about the fire, instead of warning the ninth floor as well… workers scatter in panic; the ninth floor was never notified. As the fire approached the ninth floor, factory owner Isaac Harris rushed to them. However the door standing between him and the ninth floor was barricaded with a barrel or motor oil. The call to the fire station...
Words: 556 - Pages: 3
...The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was the loss of one hundred and forty-six women in the Asch building on March 25th, 1911. The fire started on the eighth floor of the building at four forty PM and spread upwards to the ninth and tenth floors. While the workers attempted to get out, the doors were locked and one only swung inwards. This trapped in the masses of women that were trying to get out. So, with them realizing they were trapped in they made the hard decision of how they wanted to die, either burning to death or jumping out the windows. While some women got out to the fire escape it was useless because it began to melt and it was already two stories from the ground. After thirty minutes of the top three floors being up in flames, the fire had died down (Triangle Factory of 1911, Slide Six)....
Words: 573 - Pages: 3
