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On Saturday, March 25, 1911, shortly before the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory closed for the day, a fire erupted. The factory occupied the top three floors of a 10-story New York City building. Within 20 minutes, 146 garment workers had died—some from smoke inhalation or fire, others by falling or jumping to their deaths. Locked doors and a collapsed fire escape had limited escape. Most victims were young immigrant women. The company’s owners, who fled their office without warning workers, were acquitted of manslaughter when it could not be proved that they knew doors were locked.
Following the tragedy, labor organizers and reform-minded politicians successfully pushed for new fire codes and various protections of workers. Some two decades later, sociologist Ruth Milkman argues, the Triangle fire contributed to “New Deal standards for wages, hours and working conditions, and the right to organize and bargain collectively” at the national level. Nonetheless, even today, many workers still face immediate hazards and chronic health risks in the workplace. The materials below explore the fire’s complex causes and aftermath. They include government and union reports from subsequent investigations as well as speeches, testimonials, and newspaper stories. –Prof. Kathleen Brosnan
Primary Sources: Original Documents from the Time
McFarlane, Arthur E. “Fire and the Skyscraper.” McClure’s Magazine, September 1911, 467–82.
Secondary Sources: What Historians Have Written
Kessler-Harris, Alice. “Women’s Choices in an Expanding Labor Market.” In Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States, 108–41. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. (Companion Canvas page. See above.)
Orleck, Annelise. “Coming of Age: The Shock of the Shops and the Dawning of Political Consciousness, 1900-1909.” In Common Sense and A Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965, 31–52. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. (Companion Canvas page. See above.)
Roediger, David R. “Class Conflict, Reform, and War: The Working Day from 1907 to 1918.” In Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day, 177–208. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989. (Companion Canvas page. See above.)
Von Drehle, David. “The Triangle.” In Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, 35–54. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003. (Companion Canvas page. See above.)
Background
“Fire!” Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire. Cornell University.
“Investigation and Trial.” Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire. Cornell University.