THROWBACK: The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Catches Fire - March 25 1911

(The Triangle Shirtwaist company during the fire outbreak with fire fighters 
and others trying to put it off)


(The Triangle Shirtwaist Company before the fire outbreak)

            Calling the History back to mind reminds us of the tragic event that happened in the U.S at about 106 years ago. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s fire resulted in the tragic loss of nearly 150 young women and girls on March 25, 1911, in New York City. The garment workers at the company had been attempting to unionize to gain better wages and improved working conditions. The factory's management responded by locking the workers into the building. Fabric scraps, oil and hot machines crammed into rooms on the upper floors of the ten-story building quickly unleashed an inferno within the building. With the exits blocked, girls attempted to use the rusted fire escape or jump from windows into the fire department's dry-rotted nets, only to plunge onto the pavement in front of bystanders below. The tragedy was exasperated by the failure of the U.S. government to protect its citizens who were working in deplorable conditions, but it was difficult for anyone who saw the corpses lined up on sidewalks waiting for identification to deny the need for labor reform and improved fire safety equipment. The deaths unified female labor reformers of the Progressive era.


(Michele Anderson, a teacher at John Glenn High School near Detroit, was named 2014 National History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and HISTORY.)