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Triangle shirt waist factory fire causes
Triangle shirt waist factory fire causes
Triangle shirt waist factory fire causes
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Matt Vignola
Ms. Sassaman
United States History I
March 17, 2014
Changes in Workplace Environment Brought by the Triangle Fire
In 1901, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory opened on the 8th floor of the Asch Building in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in lower Manhattan. By 1908, the company also occupied the 9th and 10th floors; however, the owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris were notorious for ignoring fire and safety standards (The Triangle Factory Fire; von Drehle). There was a severe lack of regulations in regards to fire safety for both the physical factory conditions, as well as those for the workforce and the ones that were in place were mostly ignored (“Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire”). The disregard for these regulations lead to the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which lead to the death of 146 employees on March 25, 1911 (Marrin 1). This tragedy brought many necessary changes to fire safety rules and regulations regarding the American work environment. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire forced multiple demands for improvements in Gilded Age workplace safety conditions, which went on to cause lasting improvements in the working conditions of the United States.
At beginning of the 20th century, not much thought was given to fire safety and standards in the workplace, especially in industrial factories. In addition, there was minimal consideration for the employees in these work environments. From the start of the Gilded Age to the turn of the century, roughly 12 million immigrants, most from Europe, came to America. Throughout the next decade there were as many as 9 million additional people who immigrated to the United States. A majority of those people came through Ellis Island in New York City (Marrin 4...
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...r Labor Standards Act, which established minimum wage and work hour regulations and child labor laws (“Workplace Safety: Need To Know”).
Though a tragic event, some argue that the fire was a necessary evil due to all the changes it brought. The fire brought to light the fact that factory employees could form unions and fight the oppression they faced in the workplace. The president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, David Dubinsky, stated, “These were our martyrs because what we couldn't accomplish by reasoning with the bosses, by pleading with the bosses, by arguing with the bosses, they accomplished with their deaths,” at the commemoration for the 50th anniversary of the fire (The Triangle Factory Fire). In conclusion, the fire brought a legacy that has been, and will be, felt throughout all the workplaces in the United States for years to come.
At this time, unions garnered strength in numbers, women fought for voting rights, and workers advocated for protection from the government. Before the Triangle fire, the owners of the factory had locked the doors to prevent theft, only allowing the women to leave through a single door, checking their purses one by one to inspect for stolen shirtwaists. This situation, the crowded, filthy factory floor, long working hours, and low wages all led many of the four hundred Triangle Shirtwaist factory workers to go on strike in 1909. Although they won concessions on wages, they received little else from the
Life in the early 1900’s wasn’t easy. Competition for jobs was at an all time high, especially in New York City. Immigrants were flooding in and needed to find work fast, even if that meant in the hot, overcrowded conditions of garment factories. Conditions were horrid and disaster was inevitable, and disaster did strike in March, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York set on fire, killing 146 workers. This is an important event in US history because it helped accomplish the tasks unions and strikes had tried to accomplish years earlier, It improved working conditions in factories nationwide and set new safety laws and regulations so that nothing as catastrophic would happen again. The workplace struggles became public after this fire, and the work industry would never remain the same again.
During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the depression, many Americans spoke their minds through pen and paper. Many criticized Hoover’s policies of the early Depression and praised the Roosevelts’ efforts. Each opinion about the causes and solutions of the Great Depression are based upon economic, racial and social standing in America.
As a society, we often judge people solely by what is said of them or by them; but not by what they did. We forget to take into account the legacy that one leaves behind when they sometimes fail at completing the current task. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the charismatic man who stood at the helm of American government during the most trying decade in our brief history, the 1930s, set out to help the “common man” through various programs. Many historians, forgetting the legacy of the “alphabet soup” of agencies that FDR left behind, claim that he did not fix the Great Depression and therefore failed in his goal. What this essay desires to argue is that those historians are completely right. Through his many programs designed to help the economy, laborers, and all people lacking civil rights, President Roosevelt did not put an end to the Great Depression; however he did adapt the federal government to a newly realized role of protector for the people.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
Between 1880 and 1920 almost twenty-four million immigrants came to the United States. Between better salaries, religious freedom, and a chance to get ahead in life, were more than enough reasons for leaving their homelands for America. Because of poverty, no future and various discrimination in their homelands, the incentive to leave was increasing. During the mid-1800's and early 1900's, the labor and farm hands in Eastern Europe were only earning about 15 to 30 a day. In America, they earned 50 cents to one dollat in a day, doubling their paycheck. Those lower wage earners in their homeland were st...
Disasters can be so impactful; some can forever change the course of history. While many at the time thought this story would soon pass, and with it all the potential bad publicity, the story of the Triangle fire spread quickly, and outraged many people. On a beautiful spring day in March 1911 when 146 workers lost their lives, a fire would prove it could do what years of reformers had failed to do, get the government on the side of the workers. I would argue that the fire largely impacted the country. Specifically, the Triangle Fire ended up changing New York’s interconnected political and economic scene, and spurred on the creation of stricter safety codes. For the first time owners would hold responsibility for their actions. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris; being indicted for manslaughter was proof of this. Social change seemed to be spurred as well; the general public and newspapers would come back the workers of New York. Large institutions would suffer as well. Tammany Hall would be feared less and less by waves of new immigrants. The largest change brought about by the blaze would be legislation. Twenty-five bills, recasting the labor laws of the state
Loose fabric was strewn about the floor and stuffed under equipment, providing kindling for the fire to quickly become an inferno. As women attempted to exit, they were met with locked doors and forced to find other means of escape, including jumping from the eight floor windows, climbing down elevator cables, and scampering down the fire escape - each route of escape tragically failed, costing many their lives. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is an example of how quickly dangerous and neglectful conditions can quickly take many lives, but it has also served as the impetus for great changes in workplace and fire safety codes and regulations, including the development of Fire Safety Codes, implementation of state-based worker’s compensation laws, and the formation of New York State’s Industrial Code. The impacts of these changes and many others are still felt today, more than 100 years later. There is, however, still work to be done in the area of workplace fire safety, as evidenced in the Kader Toy Factory fire and the Imperial Chicken Processing Plant fire.
The 1930’s brought about economic disaster for the United States. Unemployment levels soared to 25%. (SSA) Suddenly there were all types of people who were unable to meet their own needs. People could no longer justify economic failure as moral defects. Economic disaster became so widespread during the Great Depression th...
14. Fair Labor Standards Act, www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk, 6/11/04 --------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Fair Labor Standards Act; www.inforplease.com, June 11, 2004.
It is the worker’s condition that he truly focuses on. Many of the problems that people faced during this time include: tenement housing, poor working conditions, child labor, monopolies of business, social and political inequality, and most importantly people putting profits over lives. It is around the same time that a terrible fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The unsafe working conditions made the employees escape nearly impossible.
Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, in New York City a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. One of the worst tragedies in American history it was know as the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. It was a disaster that took the lives of 146 young immigrant workers. A fire that broke out in a cramped sweatshop that trapped many inside and killed 146 people.
In the early 1900's a newly arrived immigrant worker faced numerous challenges that had to be overcome. Often times literally arriving with the clothes on their back and a few meager dollars, it was crucial for these individuals to find work and lodging as soon as possible.
Devastation and desperation started on Thursday, October 24, 1929. There was a strong sense of panic in the air at the Stock Exchange. The stocks were dropping, alarmingly fast; the worried American tried desperately to keep their savings. Markets began to steady again on Friday and Saturday only to sweep back down the following Monday. By Tuesday the twenty-ninth all doubt was erased, many Americans lost everything they had on Black Tuesday (Andrist and Stillman 190). President Herbert Hoover made a decision and refused to provide emergency relief. Hoover believed that it was “strictly a state and local responsibility.” Most local organizations were far too small to handle this big of a situation (Andrist and Stillman 193). America needed a change, a change that would come at the next election time.
“The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was created in 1938 to establish a minimum wage and a limit on the number of hours which may be worked in a standard work week. It also provides standards for equal pay, overtime pay, record keeping, and child labor.” This law was created during a time period of great financial and political turmoil.