Background David Von Drehle explained the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire to be one of great history. Stuart Shiffman (2011) supports this claim by indicating that the Triangle: The Fire that Changed America is a powerful yet historical work that brings vibrancy to the event of the fire. The engulfing flames destroyed the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, taking one hundred and forty six lives. The victims of the fire were mostly Jewish and Italian women workers, who were immigrants. During the course of the fire only one exit door was unlocked, forcing workers to fall to their death, while others died from the smoke. David Von Drehle used scholarly research to capture the essence of the event, while in the same breathe presenting …show more content…
The content presented by Von Drehle was enormously detailed, especially those from eye witness. According to Heather Pool (2012), “…large crowd…witnessed dozens of young girl plunge to their death from the 9th floor, many in flames. Members of the crowd could hear screams of the workers as they caught fire and could smell the burnt flesh of the victims” (pg. 183). Though eye witness was and integral part of David Von Drehle explanation of what was happening in the triangle fire, only those who were present at the site the tragedy can really understand. Steven Biel (2011) mentioned that, “Those personal narratives, though eloquent, come at a remove of two or more generations and have less of an emotional impact…” (pg. 943). Reader can only imagine what it is like but cannot feel the emotions of the eye witnesses, despite the intricate …show more content…
According to Zasky (2003), “The author’s discovery of a long-lost trial transcript also advances our collective understanding of the circumstances surrounding the disaster, and helps explain why the Triangle was such a safety-challenged workplace” (n.p). The vivid account of the lawyers involved in the trial further supplements the readers’ understanding behind the motivations of the main
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire not only affected the city of New York, but also the rest of the country. It forever changed the way our country would look at safety regulations in factories and buildings. The fire proved to America what can and will happen if we over-look safety regulations and over-crowd buildings. Unfortunately, 146 lives are taken before we fully understand this concept.
At the time of the fire the only safety measures available for the workers were 27 buckets of water and a fire escape that would collapse when people tried to use them. Most of the doors were locked and those that were not locked only opened inwards and were effectively held shut by the onrush of workers escaping the fire. As the clothing materials feed the fire workers tried to escape anyway they could. 25 passengers flung themselves down the elevator shaft trying to escape the fire. Their bodies rained blood and coins down onto the employees who made it into the elevator cars. Engine Company 72 and 33 were the first on the scene. To add to the already bleak situation the water streams from their hoses could only reach the 7th floor. Their ladders could only reach between the 6th and 7th floor. 19 bodies were found charred against the locked doors. 25 bodies were found huddled in a cloakroom. These deaths, although horrible, was not what changed the feelings toward government regulation. Upon finding that they could not use the doors to escape and the fire burning at their clothes and hair, the girls of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, aged mostly between 13 and 23 years of age, jumped 9 stories to their death. One after another the girls jumped to their deaths on the concrete over one hundred of feet below. Sometimes the girls jumped three and four at a time. On lookers watched in horror as body after body fell to the earth. "Thud -- dead; thud -- dead; thud -- dead; thud -- dead.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire most of all impacted all forms of industry, and changed the way workers worked. Along with the legislations that impacted women and children, laws also centered on the safety and well being of all workers. One of the main reforms and changes came through the formation of the New York Factory Investigating Commission, or the FIC: a legislative body that investigated the manufacturers for various infractions. They were based on protecting the workers: both their rights and their lives. The FIC investigated countless factories and “enacted eight laws covering fire safety, factory inspections and sanitation.” The FIC was highly focused on the health and safety of industrial workers, making reports and legislation that focused on “fire safety, building construction, machine guarding, heating, lighting, ventilation, and other topics” and on specific industries like “chemicals, lead trades, metal trades, printing shops, sweatshops and mercantile establishments.” Thirteen out of seventeen of the bills submitted by the FIC became laws, and “included measures requiring better fire safety efforts, more adequate factory ventilation, improved sanitation and machine guarding, safe operation of elevators” and other legislations focused for specific establishments.” Fire safety and new fire codes such as “mandate emergency exits, sprinkler systems, and maximum-occupancy laws,” such as the Fire Prevention Act of 1911, were put into place to limit the likelihood that another fire like the one at Triangle would occur, or be as drastic and deathly. Other organizations like the Joint Board of Sanitary Control “set and maintain standards of sanitation in the workplace,” as well as actually enforcing these stand...
On March 25, 1947, the Centralia no. 5 mine in Illinois exploded, claiming 111 lives (Martin, 31, 42). The apparent cause was determined to be inadequate mine maintenance by the operator—coal dust had built up on the floor and walls of the mine, creating conditions conducive to a chain reaction of explosions that would kill most of the workers inside of the mine. However, this was not the root cause of the disaster; it was the outcome of a systemic failure within the state government of Illinois. Despite the continuous warnings of a state mining inspector and a chain of notice letters sent from the Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals notifying the mine operator—the Centralia Coal Company—of the dangerous conditions in its mine, the disaster was not averted. The disaster occurred because both the mine operator and the Department itself dismissed the inspector’s warnings. The real, indispensable culprit of the disaster at Centralia no. 5 was political interference within the Department and the failure to conduct independent oversight over it. These failures are near universally applicable to national security organizations and their less...
It is reported that over 6 million Jews were brutally murdered in the Holocaust, but there were a very few who were able to reach the liberation, and escape alive. There were many important events that occurred in Elie Wiesel’s Night, and for each and every event, I was equally, if not more disturbed than the one before. The first extremely disturbing event became a reality when Eliezer comprehended that there were trucks filled with babies that the Nazi’s were throwing the children into the crematorium. Unfortunately, the sad truth of the murdering babies was clearly presented through, “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there, […] babies”, (Wiesel, Night, 32). This was one of the most disturbing events of the narrative for myself and truly explained the cruelty and torture of the Holocaust.
Mrs. Rayfield wrote a great article about the devastation left over after this massive fire. I found that her accounts were very detailed and had good pictures to go along with them. I decided to use this source in my essay because she also showed the good effect that the fire had on the city not only the bad. She had a complete different point of view.
People around the city went to bed, everything seemed relatively normal. Smoke dwindling into the dark night sky, the faint smell of burning wood. All normal for Chicago. Fires were a daily part of life for this wooden city. Near the time of 2 a.m. the fire didn’t seem so normal and average anymore. A mean flame was being born, it was blazing to life.
... Isaac Harris, and Max Steuer, just to name a few. Had Von Drehle not given these foreshadows, their importance in this event would have been lost. The epilogue was also an extremely important part of the book. Von Drehle uses this section to explain what happened to key figures after the fire, like Francis Perkins, who he explains came to become the first woman to hold a cabinet position under Franklin D. Roosevelt (Von Drehle, 263). Von Drehle also uses the epilogue to stress the importance the event played in shaping the meaning of liberalism in American politics, and how the event helped lead the Tammany machine from the old to the new (Von Drehle, 267). David Von Drehle did an amazing job of stressing the importance of the Triangle Fire had in the early 20th Century labor movement.
Von Drehle makes it very clear in his book that the Triangle fire did in fact, as the subtitle suggests, change America. He gives clear examples of how the Triangle fire led Tammany Hall to almost completely shift its agenda, and how it also led to a plethora of new safety codes. His argument is made especially compelling by how he gives a detailed background of many key people involved and also how he describes in detail how things were before and after the fire. This gives the reader a fuller understanding of the time period around the fire, and therefore shows how much the fire actually changed things. After reading his book, it is abundantly clear that the Triangle fire was a main cause of political change and safety reform in America. Although terrible, it led to many positive changes in American politics.
Chapter 5: Mary Roach explains the deaths caused by aircraft crash disasters. After having discussions with injury analyst she gains knowledge and makes notes. She publishes a book for others to know human remains can be evidence theses disasters.
The novel Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle is a novel that brought worldwide recognition of what terrible events that occurred on March 25th 1911. Von Drehle is a well-known American author and a journalist. With a bachelor degree from the University of Denver, and earning his masters in literature from Oxford University. He worked in many newspapers such as the Denver post, the Washington post, and the Times. Therefore, publishing many pieces which he received an award for such as Among the lowest of the dead: inside death row, Deadlock: the indie story of Americas closest election, and Rise to greatness: Abraham Lincoln and Americas most perilous year. The novel Triangle is about a shirtwaist factory fire that occurred on March 25th, 1911. It was a deadly fire that happened in the New York triangle factory that killed approximately 146 workers. This tragedy is well remembered in American industrial history, because the deaths could have been prevented. Most of the victims were burned alive or jumped to their death, because the factory did not have the proper safety equipment and the doors being locked within the building. This tragedy brought attention to the dangerous working conditions that the victims endured in the sweatshop factories. Which therefore led to new laws
Before this tragedy occurred the suffering of the workers was very evident. Take for instance this first hand account by Sadie Frowne.
In an interview with Sherman Alexie, Alexie states that, "The smoke that originates from the first fire in the movie is what causes these events, and the smoke from the second fire brings about the beginning of resolution." The first fire is the tragic house fire and the second fire is a fire that the healing figure of the movie starts in order to burn down the trailer Arnold Joseph lived in. The trailer's fire symbolizes letting go of all the pain Arnold Joseph caused in the world. It helps show that Victor is slowly letting go of the pain his father caused which in turn means the fire that burns within him is starting to smolder as
That minor detail of the critical placement of the fire ultimately cost the man his life. The third...
The most crucial evidence found to help in investigating is at the crime scene. Numerous fragments are exposed to prove Bruno Richard Hauptmann as guilty. One of the many pieces of evidence used against Hauptmann was a ladder that was left at the crime scene. As one of the investigators p...