Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

New York, New York

March 25, 1911

​

On March 25, 1911, 500 employees, mostly young girls, were working overtime in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory when a fire broke out. The fire quickly spread through the building since the floors were covered in fabrics and chemical fluids. The only fire escape immediately broke and all of the doors were locked.(1) The employers locked the doors to prevent tardiness and, after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Strike, they realized it could also prevent the workers from leaving the factory in protest. Girls working in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were also locked in because their employers feared they would steal the finished shirtwaists.(2) In fifteen minutes, 146 workers were killed in the fire, from smoke inhalation or from falling to their deaths. This industrial disaster is famous for the devastation it wreaked and the changes in legislation that ensued.(3)

​

The Reaction

All witnesses of the fire were shocked, even the policeman who found themselves helpless at the scene, and many of whom broke up the New York Shirtwaist Strike, or the Uprising of the Twenty Thousand, two years prior. Many loved ones of victims had to identify countless disfigured bodies at "Misery Lane," a large shed fashioned into a temporary morgue.(4) Following the tragic fire, many New Yorkers felt compelled to donate money to civic organizations, The American Red Cross, the WTUL, ILGWU, and even newspaper offices. Around $150,000 was donated, equivalent to $3,411,000 today.(5) Frances Perkins, a workers-rights advocate and U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, described this mobilization after the event. She stated, "there was a stricken conscience of public guilt and we all felt that we had been wrong, that something was wrong with that building which we had accepted or the tragedy never would have happened. Moved by this sense of stricken guilt, we banded ourselves together to find a way by law to prevent this kind of disaster.” The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire spurred labor unions to action in preventing a similar disaster.(6)

Many immigrants felt anger toward the factory owners who let so many die because of their inadequate regulations. On April 2, the Women's Trade Union League held a meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House to take preventative measures and fight for fire safety in the workplace. They initially proposed a Bureau of Fire Prevention but many wanted more. Some members formed a blue-ribbon citizens' committee to directly engage with the New York State legislature for reforms.(7) This industrial disaster shortly followed other less publicized accidents at the New Jersey lamp factory, the Monongah Mine in West Virginia, and the Cherry Mine in Illinois. The culmination of these led many Americans to blame the corporations in charge. A Factory Investigating Commission was established in New York which, from 1912 to 1914, reformed or passed three dozen laws to ensure factory workers' safety. Other states soon followed. Workers compensation, work hours laws, and safety regulations for industries such as mining, railroads, and construction were established. These new regulations influenced the creation of the National Labor Relations Act, or the Wagner Act, and New Deal labor laws in the coming years.(8)

​

​

Sources:

(1) David Park, "Triangle Shirtwaist Fire," Dictionary of American History, edited

    by Stanley I. Kutler, 3rd ed., vol. 8, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003, pp.

    208-209, U.S. History In Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/

    CX3401804278/UHIC?u=va_p_collegiate&sid=UHIC&xid=5d122eb8, Accessed

    24 Apr, 2018.

​

(2) New York Times (NY), "Doors Were Locked, Say Rescued Girls," March 27, 1911, 1.

​

(3) David Park, "Triangle Shirtwaist Fire," Dictionary of American History.

​

(4) Albert Marrin, Flesh and Blood so Cheap (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 122-125.

​

(5) Albert Marrin, Flesh and Blood so Cheap, 126.

​

(6) Albert Marrin, Flesh and Blood so Cheap, 122.

​

(7) Albert Marrin, Flesh and Blood so Cheap, 130-133.

​

(8) David Park, "Triangle Shirtwaist Fire," Dictionary of American History.

​