AceHistoryDesk – Today in History – On Saturday, March 25, 1911, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the heart of New York City, a lethal fire broke out on the factory floor, located at the top of the ten-story Asch Building near Washington Square East.

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Trapping many of the textile workers inside, the fire claimed the lives of one in four employees: more than one hundred women and two dozen men, many of them young, recent immigrants and non-English speakers, perished in the blaze or while jumping from windows to escape.

The dangerous working conditions responsible for the fire and its casualties were typical for urban factories, often known as sweatshops, of this period. The largely preventable tragedy and its aftermath helped to galvanize a series of reforms in the working conditions of laborers that continued through the twentieth century.

Less than three weeks after the fire, on April 11, 1911, factory co-owners Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were indicted on charges of manslaughter—but when the case went to trial that December, they were found not guilty. Despite the verdict, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory would never fully recover. Harris and Blanck moved their operations several blocks away, but within a few years both the company and the business partnership came to an end. Yet the story was larger than the fate of a single enterprise, and had far greater staying power.

Labor and relief organizations sprung into action. Mourners took to the streets. News of the fire and subsequent trial were reported nationwide. Multiple newspapers reported that the Triangle Shirtwaist factory doors were locked or swung inward, and that many of the exits were blocked or in disrepair. Importantly, as many papers, including the The Yakima Herald noted (March 29, 1911, p. 6), the “greater number of the employees were unable to speak English yet there were no Yiddish or Italian directions.”

Set against the backdrop of lax labor standards paired with rising immigration since the end of the nineteenth century, the Triangle Shirtwaist incident speaks to the adversities faced by many thousands of immigrants, especially women, as they attempted to make their way in a new country. In the wake of the fire, immigrant communities memorialized the tragedy, while labor organizations such as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (founded 1900) gained newfound momentum, organizing workers to engage in collective bargaining to better their daily lot.

But the story is not all tragedy.  Witnessing this event is credited with inspiring the labor-reforming career of Frances Perkins, who later became the first woman appointed to a presidential cabinet in 1933. As Secretary of Labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Perkins created sweeping reforms including the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Labor Standards Bureau.  During her tenure:

“…child labor was abolished, minimum wage and maximum-hour laws were enacted, and, through the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, workers were guaranteed the right to organize and bargain collectively. She also chaired the Committee on Economic Security, established in 1934, which recommended the nationalization of unemployment and old-age insurance. Thanks to her committed pursuit of this ideal, the Social Security Act was signed into law in 1935.”

Notable New Yorkers. Columbia University Librariesnormal

The ordeal of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, together with the labor movement that surrounded and grew from it, inspired countless workers to organize for better treatment. Together with business owners and government regulators, they forged the strong set of worker protections and workplace standards that are a crucial part of labor law in the United States today.

Learn More

• Learn more about women and the labor reform movement through Library of Congress collections such as the National Women’s Trade Union League of America or the National Consumers’ League Records, 1882-2003. Search for International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and other unions in the Yanker Poster Collection.
• Read issues of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union publication Justice provided through the Cornell University Libraries’ eCommons .
• Dreadful living conditions and child labor were also significant issues facing poor and immigrant communities. See the exhibit Jacob Riis: Revealing “How the Other Half Lives” for one reformer’s efforts to spur corrective actions with writing and photography. The National Child Labor Committee Collection likewise features the work of reformist photographer Lewis Hine.
• Listen to an interview with Marianna Costa in which she talks about the conditions at her first job in the textile industry, in Paterson, New Jersey. Read transcribed interviews with a variety of textiles workerscollected during the Great Depression, now part of American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940. Explore the collection Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904 to compare sweatshops like Triangle Shirtwaist to other varieties of factory work in the early twentieth century.
• Identify newspaper articles about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire through Chronicling America, a collection of historic American newspapers with more than 12 million pages available. Start with Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Topics in Chronicling America. From there search for additional examples of workers, immigrants, and women engaged in labor organizing.
• View the feature on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in the March This Month in Business History.
• Read about other significant days in the history of labor. Search Today in History on labor to find features such as the history of the eight-hour work day.
• Find more about Jewish immigration to the United States in the online exhibit From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America in the section A Century of Immigration, 1820-1924. Explore the theme of immigration on the Teacher’s page, and learn more about researching Immigrant Arrivals from the National Archives.

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