Reactions to the Fire: Triangle Shirtwaist Company

On March 25, 1911 a deadly fire broke out on the ninth floor of a clothing warehouse called the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Out of five hundred employees working, (mostly young women), one hundred and forty six had died as a result of the fire. The survivors of the fire were left to relive those agonizing moments over and over in their heads. How could such a horrible disaster occur? The images of people leaping from ninth story windows to their death because they did not want to burn alive would forever haunt the victims and the people of New York City. Employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company mostly had been young women, some as young as fifteen years old, and most were Jewish and Italian immigrants hoping for a better life no matter how bad working conditions were (http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/story/fire.html). The Triangle fire was the perfect example of how inadequate fire prevention had been back in 1911, not enough fire escapes, doors had been locked, fire escapes were not functional, many problems had captured after this tragic fire erupted. When the fire did erupt, firefighters arrived to the scene with inadequate ladders, most of the ladders were too short to even reach the ninth story. After the fire had subsided, many people were furious and took to the streets protesting for better working conditions, workers went to the unions hoping for a change to occur and also demanding that the owners Harris and Blanck were brought to trials for unsafe conditions at the factory. The nation had learned about the horrific fire from many on lookers who happened to be close to the factory when the fire erupted. One of firsthand accounts came from a United Press worker who just happened to be at Washington Park on March 25, 1911. William G Shepard writes about how he heard loud thuds as body hit the cobblestone sidewalks. “I even watched one girl falling. Waving her arms, trying to keep her body upright until the very instant she struck the sidewalk, she was trying to balance herself. Then came the thud, then a silent, unmoving pile of clothing and twisted, broken limbs” (http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/primary/testimonials/ootss_WilliamShepherd.html). As he looked up to the seventh floor, he heard women screaming, “Call the fireman”, “and get a ladder”, panic was seen in a very horrific way. The fireman tried to use a net to catch these poor women but as the witness accounts, the net could not hold the body weight and then again, he heard the “thud” of a body hit, “The thuds were so long, the city could hear it”. It was later to be known that the same floor that the girls had been jumping out of, most were inside burning alive with nowhere to go. On the ninth floor, he witnessed the girls burning alive in front of his eyes. On the sidewalks were numerous bodies, dead bodies with only tags on their wrists and a number to identify them, one of the girls had an engagement ring on, her future that ended too soon for her to be married. The water from the hose of the firefighters was stained red from all the blood, he remembered these were the shirtwaist makers, the ones who went on strike the following year for better working conditions and better sanitary conditions, “these dead bodies were the answer” (http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/primary/testimonials/ootss_WilliamShepherd.html). Reactions to the fire came in many various forms, to eyewitness accounts of people seeing women and men jump out of buildings or a fire chief testimonial on how safe the building actually was. The testimonial of Edward F. Croker testified that the buildings that were present including the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, most of them did not have elevators but had staircases, wooden stairways (http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/primary/reports/EdwardCrokerTestimony.html). Many other issues were present and the reaction of the fire chief proved a point that the building was not fire hazard and many things could have been fixed in order to prevent so many deaths. There was also a problem with how many people were on each floor, the fire chief said about one hundred fifty to about three hundred people on each floor. Overcrowding was an issue, alone with people smoking cigarettes and cigars. Other issues included, hardly any if any fire escapes, and if there were fire escapes many women and children could not use them to their advantage, they could not descend down them. Another issue the fire chief spoke about was the fact the the passages leading into the building were overcrowded, dirty, unclean, goods were piled up in front of the doors and windows making it nearly impossible to get it. Wood was used through out the building, doors, floors, windows, just about everything was wood based making it very inflammable and, “adding fuel to the fire” (http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/primary/reports/EdwardCrokerTestimony.html). The real problem that the fire chief testified was about how nobody would take responsibility when it came to who was at fault for the fire. The fire chief went on to say that everybody would blame responsibility on the other party, nobody was responsible. One of the many illustrations provided shows a young women’s body on the sidewalk surrounded by burning fragments of what was left of the building. This was only one of the one hundred and fifty four women that lost their lives on that day because of many unsafe working conditions. Not enough fire escapes, and the one that was present had collapsed. Who was to take responsibility for all the lives lost? Nobody. Also, in the illustration on the building there is a sign saying, “Operators Wanted. Inquire Ninth Floor”. On the ninth floor is where the fire broke out and were the worst unsafe working conditions were to be seen. The building was said to be, “fire proof” but clearly it had not been fire proof at all and nobody was to take blame. The owners of the building also did not seem to think it was a big deal that so many innocent people had lost their lives, Max Blanck and Issac Harris ended up setting three years after the fire for seventy five dollars per life lost. Justice? No justice had been served, to the victims or the families that lost loved ones in this horrible Triangle Fire of 1911 (http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/primary/photosIllustrations/?sec_id=8).