The Triangle Factory Fire of 1911

July 22, 2004 9:45 AM

The Triangle Factory Fire of 1911.'This site includes selected information on a terrible and unnecessary tragedy involving the death of many young working women in a New York City sweatshop at the beginning of the 20th century and the resulting investigations and reforms. '
posted by plep (7 comments total)

I thought Mr. Cunningham saved them all?
posted by bondcliff at 12:53 PM on July 22, 2004

This is fascinating, thank you so much for sharing!
posted by headspace at 1:41 PM on July 22, 2004

Fahrenheit 1911?
posted by hattifattener at 5:22 PM on July 22, 2004

I read the editorials about the Triangle fire when I was researching something in high school. I can’t remember what I was researching but I still remember those editorials vividly. They kept coming to mind as I listened to the events of 9/11 unfold. Interestingly not one of the editorials post 9/11 stayed with me. Thanks for the post.
posted by arse_hat at 10:09 PM on July 22, 2004

I remember reading some first person accounts of this fire in Betsy Israel's Bachelor Girl: The Secret History of Single Women in the 20th Century.

The young women who worked at this factory enjoyed a lot of camaraderie. At the time of the fire, one group of girls had just lit candles on the cake gotten to celebrate one girl's getting engaged, when the fire broke out in another part of the building. There was a mad scramble to exit the building. One girl from that group saw the engaged girl standing by the window. When she looked back a second later, the girl was gone.

It's terrible that it takes a tragedy like this one - or like the Titanic - or like the fire in a school building in the sixties - to make people see how important it is to plan for disaster.
posted by orange swan at 6:48 AM on July 23, 2004

Good post, plep, thanks.
Unfortunately, we didn't learn enough from this tragedy. In 1991, 25 workers perished in a fire in a North Carolina chicken plant - they also had been locked in, apparently to prevent theft.

And despite these incidents, wouldn't you know that as recently as this year, Walmart has locked night shift workers in to prevent theft. Hard to believe how little some employers seem to value worker lives.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:57 AM on July 23, 2004

orange swan: do you mean our lady of angels?
posted by crush-onastick at 2:14 PM on July 26, 2004