The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, killing 146 of the 500 employees, many of whom were young women. The fire remains one of the great disasters of American industrial history, due to the fact that most of the deaths were preventable. The lack of safety regulations in the workplace was the main culprit behind the deaths of so many women.

In 1910, garment workers in New York had begun calling for better working conditions, including the women from Triangle. The strike went on for 11 weeks, and Anne Morgan, the daughter of business tycoon J.P. Morgan, joined, raising public support of the movement. Eventually, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, owners of the Triangle factory, agreed to higher wages and shorter hours. However, they did not permit worker unions, and the workers did not have the power to improve factory conditions. The men and women were forced to work with inadequate ventilation, lack of safety precautions and fire drills, and door that remained locked during working hours. Coincidentally, that door happened to be one of the few ways to enter or exit the floor of the building the workers worked on.

On the day of the fire, a lit cigarette from the eighth floor ignited a fire, which hungrily consumed the loose fabric and thread from the shirtwaists being produced. As the fire spread, the workers on the ninth floor worked on, unaware that anything was going on. It was not until the smoke rose up the stairs that the workers started panicking. They tried to escape, but the fire escape was too narrow, and broke after too many women ran down it. The elevator could only hold a couple of workers at a time until it broke, and the door to the stairwell remained locked from the outside. The girls who did not make it to the elevator or the stairwells were trapped by fire, and began jumping out of the open windows. The firefighters that had arrived were ineffective, as their ladders would only reach to the eighth floor, and their hoses did not have enough pressure to spray that high. In just a couple of minutes, many of those workers had died.

The death of the young workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire triggered a wave of protests and movements for better working conditions in factories. The National Women’s Trade Union League (NWTUL) was able to compile evidence of the unsafe working conditions, and then create the Citizens’ Committee for Public Safety. Under pressure from the reformers, the government passed an act which created the Bureau of Fire Prevention. The Bureau of Fire Prevention ended confusion over the responsibilities of various city departments and agencies for inspections and safety code creation. There were also changes made to the Municipal Building Code, which included the requirement of fireproof materials and stairwells, fire alarms, extinguishers, and hoses. The city government also prevented smoking in factories.

The Factory Investigative Commission (FIC) was established by the city of New York to investigate much more than fire hazards in factories. A combination of factors, such as a Democratic Congress, public opinion, and a favorable economic climate prompted the commission to investigate low wages, long hours, child labor, and unsanitary working conditions. Additionally, the Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law required that factories install a sprinkler system and create a single fire commission.

The tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Company led to many reform bills being passed and many organizations being formed, but the main effect that it had was a change of the relationship between the government and business. Before the fire, the government had largely left businesses alone. Many historians believe that the fire represented the start of local, state, and federal governments’ attempts to achieve better working conditions in factories. The death of those 146 workers accomplished what many labor unions before them couldn’t. They created the foundation for better working conditions for workers across all of America.

Sources:

http://historybusiness.org/2773-triangle-shirtwaist-company-fire.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/triangle-intro/

http://www.history.com/topics/triangle-shirtwaist-fire

http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/story/introduction.html