Tomorrow, March 25, 2011, is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. It marked the beginning of the end of the Gilded Age.
No doubt even if you had never heard about the fire before, you heard about it this week leading up to its centennial anniversary. Despite being interested in labor history and reform, I am ashamed to say that I had never heard about the fire until 2003. I read a review of a new book by David Von Drehle called Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, and it promptly went on my Christmas list. While so many books of this ilk sensationalize, sanitize, or simplify, Von Drehle does not venture into such shallow territory.
The fire claimed the lives of 146 people. Most were poor young women and children, and many of them could barely speak English. Two years prior to the fire, the women of the factory and other garment workers went on strike for better working conditions, better pay, and shorter hours. They were harassed, threatened, and beaten. These women were earning meager wages on which their families were utterly dependent. Understand, by striking and not getting paid, these women were not skipping a movie or giving up a luxury; they and their families were going hungry and being threatened by homelessness. And still they endured, for us more than for themselves.
The photo above is of Clara Lemlich, a Russian immigrant, who was 19 years old at the time of the 1909 strike. While the newly formed International Ladies Garment Workers Union Local 25 was meeting at Cooper Union, speaker after speaker encouraged the women to hold steady, that striking would not be in their interest. Noted labor organizer Samuel Gompers had just finished addressing the crowd, sounding these notes and he was about to introduce another speaker, male of course. Clara Lemlich suddenly rose and started walking toward the podium saying, "I want say a few words. I have no further patience for talk as I am one of those who suffers from the things pictured. I move that we go on a general strike...now!" The women cheered, a thunderous applause filled the hall. The strike was on.
The strike went on for some time, but some shops settled early. Triangle was not one of those shops. In the end, the Triangle workers won some concessions from management, but management succeed at it's ultimate goal; they kept the union out of their shop. The right to run your business as you saw fit was thought to be a right in America. People were simply cogs of industry, as much a machine as the sewing machines the women broke their backs over. There was no fire code, no mandatory fire drills, no fire safety training, no mandate to install sprinklers. People, as long as they lived in a certain area of the city (read Lower East Side), were expendable. This fire changed it all, with America shaking its head at itself, knowing they had failed these women. Today, as we debate governements' role in our lives, the right to collectively bargain, income inequality, and the need for reform in certain industries to protect the innocent, I can sense these women looking down on us, shaking their heads and hoping they have not died in vain.
Tomorrow at 5:40 PM EDT (which would have been 4:40 PM EST on March 25, 1911, the time the fire broke out), I will be observing a moment of silence for these people. I hope you will join me.
For more about the fire and it's aftermath, click HERE
1st time I hear about the fire (as Im South African of course). But what a sad and brave story! I sometimes like to thnk of the people (known and unknown..especially unknown) that have gone through difficult time standing up for what they believe in and changing life/the world for us who would later be able to enjoy it....though they worked hard for it...some even paid with their lives...
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