A tragedy that changed everything
Mostly women died in Triangle fire; they are overlooked no more
The inferno was over in just 18 minutes, but the gruesome aftermath at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place looked more like a battlefield than a New York City intersection. Bodies littered the streets surrounding the Asch Building. People had jumped to escape the flames engulfing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory which occupied the building’s top three floors. It was the afternoon of March 25, 1911.
One thing after another had gone wrong during those tragic minutes. Fire ladders only reached to the sixth floor, too short to save the screaming workers. The fire hoses that hung on each floor didn’t produce a drop of water. Some exits were locked to prevent employee theft, a dangerous but legal practice. The factory had never held a fire drill and had no automatic sprinkler systems, although both had been common in New England mills since the 1880s. Minutes went by before the company’s fire alarm sounded. Ninth-floor workers, finding exit doors locked, stampeded onto a flimsy fire escape tenuously attached to the building. It crashed to the ground, killing everyone.
One hundred forty-six people died, all but two dozen women and girls. Most were teenagers, the youngest 14, many Italian or Jewish, immigrants or children of immigrants. One appalled eyewitness was Frances Perkins, already an activist for worker rights and destined to be President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor. The Triangle fire was, she said later, the first day of the New Deal.
It was New York’s 9/11, 90 years before the Twin Towers fell.
But the dignity of recognition now routinely granted to victims of tragedies never happened at the time of the Triangle fire. In 1911 there was no complete list published of those who died, perhaps because they were women, so many newly arrived in this country, few with status or means. Until recently the building, now owned by New York University, had only a small plaque marking the horrific tragedy.
Last week public officials, union members, but most important, relatives and descendants of the dead dedicated a new memorial that will now anchor the building, graced with every single name of those who died and their ages – including, after some detective work, the six names of workers who previously were not identified. I had long been moved by this tragedy and so I attended the dedication Oct. 11.
The names and ages of victims are laser-cut into a band of metal that wraps around the building 12 feet above the street. Light reflects through each name and the names are then reflected on an angled, stone glass panel attached to the building at hip level so the names can be read by passersby, along with quotes from eyewitnesses to the fire. There is a place before each name for flowers. When completed, ribbons of stainless steel will sweep up to the windowsills on the ninth floor from which so many jumped.
But the names are the thing. About 125 family members attended the ceremony, holding pictures of their great-aunts, cousins or grandmothers who died in the fire. Rosie Weiner died at 19 behind a locked exit door, but her sister Katie survived by grabbing an elevator cable and descending nine floors; she knew that the elevator would not be back for more workers. “She never talked about it,” said Don Weiner of his great-aunt Katie. “That generation just didn’t.” His grandfather, David Weiner, Rosie and Katie’s brother, shouted at the factory owners, “Murderers!” after a trial rendered them not guilty of manslaughter – locked doors notwithstanding.
Sisters Celia and Bessie Eisenberg also worked at the factory. But on the morning of March 25, Bessie, who was 18, didn’t feel well and stayed home. Celia, 17, went to work. When the flames got too close, Ceila jumped. Bessie never got over feeling guilty that she survived, said Celia’s great-niece, Phyllis Kestenbaum. She wore a picture of Celia attached to her coat.
The dedication ceremony was top-heavy with speakers who praised unions and touted the changes that the fire brought about. And indeed, Al Smith, then a member of New York’s Assembly, made sure the Factory Investigating Commission launched after the disaster wasn’t window dressing. (Smith later became New York governor and ran unsuccessfully for president.) The indefatigable Perkins helped, too, drawing upon volunteers who fanned out across New York State, touring nearly 2,000 factories in 20 industries. They visited plants in 54 cities.
In a Cattaraugus County cannery at dawn they found children as young as 5 working beside their mothers. A Buffalo candy factory had one working toilet for 300 employees. Rickety fire escapes ended 12 feet above sidewalks. By the end of 1911, the commission proposed 15 new laws covering child labor, worker safety and fire safety. Eight laws passed. More laws followed. A working-class revolution was born.
Yet those who died – so many of them teenagers – weighed heavily on their relatives and descendants at the memorial. They laid flowers and gazed at names in silence as bagpipes played the haunting, 1854 Stephen Foster melody, “Hard Times Come Again No More.” These were sweet, young lives cut short, and all because property had more value than people.
The unions could not save the victims in 1911, but the sacrifices of those young lives and the movement that followed saved thousands who came after them. May their memories be a blessing.
The sources for this column were articles published in 1911 and the present-day Washington Post; the book, “Triangle: The Fire that Changed America,” by David Von Drehle, and “Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America,” by Adam Cohen.
Oh Maura, you made me cry
After each of these avoidable tragedies small reforms come to pass, and then they're either ignored or never expanded upon. Unions lose their clout and businesses go back to putting profit before humanity.
We've ended most child labor, and our labor laws are now designed to provide adequate safety measures, but workplaces are still geared toward profit and the workers still take second place. Nobody had to die in that fire. We wouldn't need memorials like this if the people in charge had only thought of the workers in their charge as living, breathing human beings with the same rights to a good life.
It's good that these stories are kept alive and we're still interested in reading them.
Thank you for this, Maura.