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Home > The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 but led to labor reform. A century later, has America forgotten its lessons?

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 but led to labor reform. A century later, has America forgotten its lessons?

Date of publication: March 20, 2011

Source: Star-Ledger

Author: Linda Ocasio

 

That indignity, and the crowded and unsanitary factory floor, led many of the 400 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers to go on strike in 1909 as they began to claim their rights to respect, better wages and safer working conditions. They won concessions on pay, but little else from the factory owners, who kept the workplace in a shambles.

And the doors locked.

Two years later, when a fire started in a wicker wastebasket, many workers didn’t stand a chance: 146 died, most of them young Italian and Jewish women newly arrived in America; 17 were men. It was the worst disaster in New York City until 9/11...

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Source URL: http://www.laborrights.org/creating-a-sweatfree-world/sweatshops/news/12481

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