Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America is a 2003 nonfiction book by author David Von Drehle. The book examines the 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, in which 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, were killed. The fire stood for 90 years as the deadliest workplace disaster in New York history. Von Drehle not only recounts the deadly fire near closing time on March 25, 1911, but he also chronicles the immediate years before and after the fire, establishing the social and political climate in which it occurred and the lasting impact that it has had on American politics. Throughout the work, three primary themes emerge: The Role of Immigrant Labor in American Economic Development, The Impact of Industrialization on Labor Conditions, and The Relationship Between Tragedy and Social Reform. In addition to being named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a New York Public Library Book to Remember, Triangle also won a Sidney Hillman Foundation book prize and a Christopher Award.

This study guide reflects the book’s first edition, published by Grove Press.

Summary

Around the turn of the 20th century, the largest wave of immigration in American history coincided with a rapid growth in the garment industry. Newly arrived immigrants—primarily Jewish Eastern Europeans but also many Italians—provided a cheap and abundant source of labor for the tenement sweatshops and garment factories. While trade unions had been strictly the domain of men to this point, a handful of young women joined the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union and formed the Local 25 on the Lower East Side. With help from the Women’s Trade Union League, a number of strikes took shape against various shops in the summer of 1909, and by that fall, an industry-wide general strike was called for. As many as 15,000 workers walked out on the first day and at least 5,000 more soon joined, demanding higher wages, fewer hours, and recognition of the union. The strike became known as the “Uprising of the 20,000.”

Although many owners of small shops surrendered to workers’ demands almost immediately, owners of large factories were determined to fight. Chief among the owners vowing to fight were Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Blanck and Harris founded their company in 1902, determined to capitalize on the hottest fashion trend of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the shirtwaist, or woman’s blouse. By the time of the strike, the partners had become known as the “Shirtwaist Kings” and now occupied the top three floors of the Asch Building, a new 10-story skyscraper on the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place. Almost exactly a year after the Uprising of the 20,000 ended, a blaze ripped through the Triangle factory on Saturday, March 25, 1911, at about 4:40 pm.

Roughly 180 people, mostly sewing machine operators, were working on the eighth floor, where the fire began. Each floor had two exits, but workers were required to leave only through the Greene Street exit so that they could be searched. At that exit, there was also a wooden partition to force employees through only one at a time. When panicked workers raced for the other exit, they found that the door was locked. As it became clear that the fire could not be battled by hand, a warning call went up to the tenth floor, where the owners’ offices were, but no call went to the ninth floor. Most workers on the ninth floor did not make it out. Many died in the smoke and flames, 19 died from jumping into the elevator shaft, 24 more fell to their deaths when the faulty fire escape collapsed, and 54 made the choice to die by jumping from the ninth-floor windows rather than being burned to death.

Progressives who demanded reforms after the Triangle disaster got them from an unlikely source. Tammany Hall had long represented the antithesis of reform, but boss Charlie Murphy and his top two legislators in Albany, Al Smith and Robert F. Wagner, decided that the Triangle fire was an opportunity to recast the famously corrupt political organization’s image and build a new constituency for the Democratic Party. Smith and Wagner pushed through 25 bills that fundamentally changed the state’s labor laws and dealt with workplace safety reforms. Based on statements of countless survivors who testified that the Washington Place exit doors were locked, District Attorney Charles Whitman chose to indict Blanck and Harris on manslaughter charges. Locking an exit door during working hours at a factory was a misdemeanor, but a misdemeanor resulting in death was manslaughter. Blanck and Harris hired Tammany Hall lawyer Max Steuer to defend them. Steuer’s brash legal strategies, coupled with a judge who seemed sympathetic to the owners, got Blanck and Harris acquitted after a jury deliberation of less than two hours.