Triangle Waist Company: The Triangle Fire

“I, with a number of other girls, was in the dressing room on the eighth floor of the Asch Building, in Washington Place, at 4.40 o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, when I heard somebody cry ‘Fire!’” Unlike those on the ninth and tenth floors (the other two floors that our factory, the Triangle Waist Company, occupied), I did not climb out of exterior windows in desperation; I was kindly shown to a window in a crash door that I could fit through in order to climb downstairs. Instead of passing through the flames as many of my coworkers had to endure, I had the unique opportunity to run from the flames and to outrun the flames. Whereas many of my coworkers were jumping down from eighty and ninety feet in desperate need of a miracle,
I only jumped from the bottom stair to the solid ground, relying only on my own ability. As I exited the building though, I heard the thuds. I saw the spatters of blood. I realized that friends of mine were, out of terror, embracing death by ground instead of death by fire. As each body hit the hard, cold, unforgiving pavement, my heart and very soul were pounded by needles, nails, and countless other sharp objects. Fear took hold, then anger took its place. Although I still live with that anger and the terror that befell us all on that day, things are not the same anymore. I see the future for us as laborers. I see positive change beginning, and I know that our futures can be bright now. In our cities, the unions have fought, and many have taken up the cross for us, the abused laborers. In our state, labor is beginning to be protected and provided for more than almost anywhere else in the country. In our nation, women are going forward from this event and guiding and shaping the path for labor and women in the U.S. I am thrilled that the deaths of my closest friends have changed the way we do things so extensively. Beginning in the city of New York, the Triangle Fire set in motion changes and new patterns that were unheard of before. At the scene of the fire, as I already discussed, there was panic, and the panic that I experienced was not just inside of me. It was throughout the onlookers and escapers of the fire. There was a great unification beginning in these people too though. In fact, much of New York City was brought into the same mindset during the days following the fire. The “ethnic differences and economic tensions” no longer proved enough to divide and cause bad relations between various peoples, and of this, I was glad. Looking back now, two driving forces of this unification in New York were the unions, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL). Sweet Rose Schneiderman, the speaker who had brought the Metropolitan Opera House down with her “eloquence”, and strong Mary Dreier, leader of the WTUL led the march on April 6th that was organized by both unions to honor the unidentified deceased women. Even though there were 120,000 people walking in this landmark march in honor of the victims, the New York Times estimates that over 400,000 people spectated from the streets and from their windows to pay their respects as well. This is more people unified on a subject than the union produced last year at the “uprising.” In the city, there have also been grumbles and murmurs about the fires relationship with the “uprising of the 20,000” that happened over a year and a half ago. These grumbles can quickly turn to full on outrage if one dwells on the idea that a boss might stage such a terrible event as a vengeful act against organizing women, but I do not think my bosses were such men. This is difficult for me because more than a few people that I knew, that I worked with, that I deeply respected have died. And I was in the center of that “uprising” a year and a half ago; I saw the nasty techniques that the owners used to try and break our strike. I heard the nasty names they called us, and I saw the brutality of public officials against many of our own. After all of that, the Triangle Company did not recognize us as a union, and they did not grant us any new policies (besides a slight wage boost and a slight decrease in required hours). My bosses were not killers though. I had the job almost since I moved here, and I made decent money. “Sometimes I made $18 a week.” I am thankful for the money, and I was able to make a good amount of it. I cannot entertain the idea that Blanck and Harris would do something of this sort on purpose, but I will say, if “they (would) have had some regard for our lives” this may have never happened. The final and biggest change that happened in our city after the fire was when others started taking the side of us, the women workers, over the owners, Blanck and Harris.
The case of this fire and its possible nefarious origins were of great interest to many people. People wrote and conducted investigations on their own, and others wrote pieces criticizing and commenting on the event. In most circumstances, however, people were on our side, the side of the female laborers! This was something that unseen previously. One newspaper article a few days after the fire completely abandoned the words “fire” and “accident”, and instead, they labeled the Triangle Fire a “Holocaust That Wiped Out One Hundred and Fifty Lives.” Amond the “six different agencies (that) initiated separate investigations of the Triangle tragedy,” Charles Whitman immediately began collecting evidence in order to answer public “demand for punishment of the owners.” In fact, the reason that Blanck and Harris ever faced any repercussions at all for not having up-to-date safety features is not as much because of the workers as because of the public support of the workers and the public outrage directed at the owners. The public was on our side and as frustrated about the tragedy as the workers who experienced it so it seemed. From the people on our side sprung forth one of the biggest changes for New York, the Committee of Safety; this was brought about by Henry Morgenthau after the Opera House meeting, where Rose Schneiderman gave her lovely speech. This meant so much more than the safety changes though. For the first time I can recall, “Morgenthau, represent(ing) the city’s financial elite” were supporting the lower-level workers. This was an incredible step for us as ladies and especially for us as workers in New York
City. The state level changes did not start off so beautifully. Governor John Dix of New York began interacting with the Triangle Fire situation by stating that “I find that I am powerless to take the initiative in an inquiry.” Soon after the Committee of Safety was formed, though, Governor Dix founded the Factory Investigating Committee. This committee did just what it sounds like. They had the opportunity to investigate factories on safety ground, and they also could write up ideas for new safety laws for the protection of the workers. This “scope of authority” on behalf of the workers was “unprecedented.” Following this, the New York state legislature passed laws that accommodated the findings of the FIC and sought to further protect workers. These laws have become model laws for other states, so I have heard. Also, this contributed to making our state “one of the most progressive states in the nation.” This takes these changes to the national level. The ILGWU announced this fire was “the fire that lit the nation,” and they were absolutely correct. It started with the great “uprising”; the strike “by women and for women” inspired women in other places to strike as well (such as Philadelphia and Chicago). Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor has gotten on board with the women workers in the aftermath of the fire. He claimed that this fire has done more for the labor movement than any “other thing could have done.” Like I mentioned before, other states and cities began following the lead of the labor progress that has been made in New York. In this way, the fire was an event “that provoked political reform and created a new public understanding of the hazards of factory life.” Finally, of importance to me, this tragedy has allowed women opportunities that they have never had before in the U.S. Women such as Pauline Newman, Clara Leimlich, and Rose Schneiderman now have the opportunity to serve on government committees such as the Factory Investigative Committee. Frances Perkins, another woman, is pursuing opportunities in the political realm. These are opportunities that would have been doubtlessly denied to women before the fire. This nation has been changed for the better, but like Samuel Gompers, I am sorry that women had “to burn” for these changes to come about. I am a woman who worked in the Triangle factory on March 25, the day of the great fire. It was a terrible day that caused horrific panicking and fear, but its great effects cannot be overstated. In the city, everyone took the side of the workers against the rich owners Blanck and Harris. The people of New York fought on our behalf against them as well. Our state emerged from this emergency the most progressive state for labor in the nation. Our nation has been remarkably changed as well because of the women involved in the political cleanup and the recognition and legislative actions that this fire inspired nationally. I have never seen a movement in women and labor like I am seeing today. The fire has indeed lit this nation. Tho’ the flames of March 25 may ne’er leave my mind’s eye, the future of protection and progress for us is nigh.