The Tragic Blaze That Inspired Reform

ILGWU Local 25 AndLockout� On September 27, 1909, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners of the

Triangle Shirtwaist Company, locked 200 young Jewish and Italian womenout of their jobs after they learned that all but seven members of theirworkforce had attended a meeting of the International Ladies’ GarmentWorkers’ Union and discussed the possibility of unionizing Triangle.

� The ILGWU lacked the money, organization, membership, and power to domuch for the female garment workers in terms of winning better pay, shorterhours, and improved working conditions.

� At the turn of the twentieth century, ten million Americans worked in factories.Less than 4% of these workers belonged to unions.

� The Triangle Company, the largest in the business, made shirtwaists (fittedblouses) intended mass consumption. Blanck and Harris, “the shirtwaistkings,” had created a “company union” known as the Triangle EmployeesBenevolent Association in hopes of extinguishing sentiment for unionization.This club for favored employees did little for the rank-and-file workers.

Sweatshops� Most garment workers toiled in

crowded, dingy, hot, humid, andunhealthy lofts for 56 hours, 6 daysa week, for as little as $3.00 perweek. When rush orders neededto be filled, employers expectedtheir employees to work nights andSundays for no additional pay.

� Some employers deducted payfrom salaries for sewing mistakesand fined workers for violations ofcompany rules.

� Employers often nailed doors andwindows shut for “security.”

� 600 garment-industry factoriesoperated in New York City alone.These factories employed over30,000 people, 80% of which werewomen.

Strike� ILGWU Local 25 responded to the lockout by declaring a strike and organizing picket lines. Jewish and Italian

union members showed solidarity.� Wealthy ladies of the National Women’s Trade Union League (New York branch) joined the picket lines.� Harris and Blanck, with the complicity of police, used company thugs and their “lady friends” to start fights with the

pickets. Once the fights occurred, police arrested the pickets. Judges treated the strikers unfairly.� Samuel Gompers, president of the AFL, finally decided to support the ILGWU.� Clara Lemlich, a shirtwaist worker and member of the Local 25 executive committee, called for a general strike,

which began on November 22, 1909. “The Uprising of the Twenty Thousand” employees from 500 factoriesbecame the first industry-wide strike organized in New York City by immigrants. The young women struck for mostof the winter.

� Many employers offered higher pay and other perks to workers who agreed to cross the picket lines in an attemptto break the union. Once the strike ended, the benefits did as well.

� Police arrested 723 pickets by Christmas Day. Public opinion began to turn against the factory owners. Workersrejected compromise proposals made by arbitrators. Smaller manufacturers began to settle with the ILGWU, andthe union declared the strike officially over. But 13 of the largest shirtwaist companies , including Triangle, refusedto reach agreement with the union.

� The garment workers from union shops won a 52-hour workweek, a 2-hour limit on evening overtime, a wageincrease of 12 to 15%, and an end to the contractor system. ILGWU membership skyrocketed to 60,ooo.

� The union at Triangle failed to gain any concessions. Fire engulfed the Triangle factory on March 25, 1911. Thesame policemen who interfered in the strike now tried to keep thousands of bystanders from the crushed and burntcorpses.

The Triangle Company� 600-700 workers occupied the 8th, 9th, and

10th floors of the Asch Building on March 25,1911.

� Most of the workers were young femaleimmigrants who earned $6 to $10 for a 60- to72-hour workweek.

� As New York City Fire Chief Edward Crokerstated, the building had “not one fireprotection.” After the fire, The New YorkTimes quoted a fire prevention expert ashaving said, “One man whom I advised toinstall a fire drill replied to me: ‘Let ‘em burn.They’re a lot of cattle anyway.’” FireDepartment ladders did not reach above theseventh floor.

� The “shirtwaist kings” locked the stairwaydoors to prevent unauthorized breaks and toprevent thievery. In violation of fire codesand labor laws, many of the doors openedinward instead of outward

� Many workers had virtually no means ofescape from the death trap.

Inferno� The fire, fed by pieces of fabric and paper

patterns, broke out on the 8th floor at theclosing bell. The blaze spread so quickly thatpeople failed to extinguish it. Within 10minutes, there was no means of escape

� Some managed to get out of the GreeneStreet door and still others barely made itthrough the Washington Place door. Thedoorways were so narrow that only oneperson could pass through at a time.

� Panic and confusion spread as rapidly as thefire. Employees tried but failed to warnpeople on the ninth floor in time. Becausethe superstructure of the Asch Building was“fireproof,” the flames did not spread throughits walls and floors, but the fire poured out ofthe 8th-floor windows. The flames ignited thewindow frames and then the interiors of the9th and 10th floors. Several of the 260workers on the 9th floor were paralyzed byfear and trapped. Most had no knowledge ofthe fire escape behind the closed metalshutters. Elevator operators such as JosephZito managed to save some before it was toolate.

“Girls Jump to Death”� The New York World reported: “They jumped with

their clothing ablaze. The hair of some of the girlsstreamed up of flame as they leaped. Thud afterthud sounded on the pavements. It is the ghastlyfact that on both the Greene and Washington placesides of the building there grew mounds of dead anddying. And the worst horror of all was that in thisheap of the dead now and then stirred a limb orsounded a moan. Within the three flaming floors itwas as frightful. There flames enveloped so manythat they died instantly…. There were skeletonsbending over sewing machines….”

� James Cooper, a World reporter who happened tobe passing by described the frightful sight: “Fromthe crowd of 500 persons there came a cry of horror.The breeze had disclosed the form of a girl shootingdown to instant death on the stone pavementbeneath. Before the crowd could realize the fullmeaning of the horror, another girl sprang upon thewindow ledge. It seemed that she had broken openthe window with her fists. Her hair, streaming downher back, was all ablaze, and her clothing was on fire.She stood poised for a moment, her arms extended,and then down she came. Three other girls at thesame moment threw themselves from variouswindows, and other girls could be seen clinging tothe window frames, struggling for breath and tryingto decide between the death within the factory roomand the death on the stone pavement and sidewalkbelow….”

“My God, Will the FireDepartment Never Come?”� The firemen stretched out

life nets in an attempt torescue the burning workers,but the nets were too weakto save the 46 jumpers fromcrashing to their agonizingdeaths.

� Firemen brought the flamesunder control in 18 minutes,but at least another 100burned to death inside thebuilding.

� Relatives could not identify 7badly burned bodies.

� Most of the victims werewomen.

The Morgue� Four hundred managed to

survive, albeit injured, stunned,and overcome with grief.

� The coroner’s office set up atemporary morgue. Thousandsof mourners showed up toidentify loved ones and claimtheir things. Some mournerstried to commit suicide.

� On April 5, 1911, over 100,000marched in funeral paradedespite a driving rain.

� New Yorkers pondered thevexing question: Who wasresponsible for the tragedy?

The Blame� Historians Allen Weinstein and R. Jackson Wilson explain that

blame should be broadly shared.� The fire department failed to sufficiently enforce safety

laws, and its equipment was inadequate.� The buildings department and its inspectors failed to

make sure that violations be fixed, even though thedepartment had only 47 inspectors to check over 55,000buildings.

� Insurance companies failed to demand safety standardsthat may have reduce fire hazards.

� Harris and Blanck deserved the largest portion of the blame.� On April 11th the two were indicted by a grand jury for

manslaughter. The trial began on December 4th.Crowds of women chanted, “Murderers! Murderers!”The police offered protection to the defendants.

� The “kings” had ignored the advice of the city and heldno fire drills. They admitted to locking the exists as away preventing “tardiness” and “theft.”

� The two had a history of violating safety codes and cityordinances.

� After deliberating for less than 2 hours, the jury found theowners not guilty of manslaughter.

� The narrow instructions delivered by the judge as well asarguments given by defense counsel Max D. Steuerconvinced the jury that the “shirtwaist kings” were not atfault because they did not know the door was locked atthe very moment that the fire broke out

� As a result of the fire, Harris and Blanck also collected ahandsome profit from the insurance company.

Aftermath� A guilty verdict may have provided the city with

closure, but the acquittal generated public outrageand provided support for substantive reform infactory working conditions.

� State legislators created the New York FactoryInvestigating Commission in June 1911. Between1911 and 1914, the commission issued over 60recommendations, 56 of which became part of newreform legislation. The laws made the statedepartment of labor more efficient, restricted use ofdangerous machinery, instituted stronger sanitationand lighting standards, and expanded supervisionover tenement labor. The commission also formedthe Bureau of Fire Prevention, which establishednew fire safety codes that included compulsory firedrills and the installation of automatic sprinklersystems in factory buildings taller than 6 stories.

� These reforms set the standard for reform in otherstates and even inspired New Deal legislation at thefederal level. Labor Secretary Frances Perkinsacknowledged the impact of the fire: “Out of thatterrible episode came a self-examination of strickenconscience in which people of [New York] saw forthe first time the individual worth and value of eachof those 146 people who fell or were burned in thatgreat fire.”

� In 1912 the New York legislature passed a lawinstituting a 54-hour workweek .