Sweatshop Fire Led to Changes in Workplace

Imminent death by fire or by fall. That was the unthinkable choice that scores of garment workers, mostly young women, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. faced that Saturday afternoon in 1911.

Chased by flames, they hurled themselves out windows, falling eight, nine or 10 stories to the New York pavement. Or they stayed trapped inside and burned.

Passersby watched in helpless horror as these young workers, their long skirts billowing and hair ablaze, jumped despite the protests of the firefighters below. Firefighters and volunteers tried to catch them in tarps that gave way upon impact.

A 13-year-old girl hung from her fingertips for several minutes off the ledge of the 10th floor until the flames burned her fingers. She fell into a net below at the same moment as two other women. The net split apart and all three died.

Witnesses also recall a man gallantly helping women off the ledge, offering his hand as they stepped one after another into eternity. The last woman he helped put her arms around him and they kissed. Then he held her out and dropped her before jumping to his own death.

In all, 146 died, 126 women and 20 men. The average age was 19. Most were Jewish and Italian immigrants who had come to America to find a better life. Instead they worked 10-hour days, six days a week, sewing on Singers the thin fitted blouses called shirtwaists that were the mode of the day for women of a higher class. Their week’s wage was $3. This particular day was payday.

Aside from the lit cigarette that probably started the fire, the investigation that followed echoes with what would become classic litanies of poor working conditions: a soiled, crowded building; literally captive workers, kept behind locked doors during the day to prevent theft and probably to discourage union organizers; owners too cheap to put in sprinklers and too heedless of their workers’ well-being even to hold a fire drill.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire became a symbol of the need for labor reform. The horror and outrage that followed--especially after Triangle owners Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were acquitted on manslaughter charges--led to a raft of commissions and changes that profoundly affect the modern American workplace. Any employee who can call OSHA--the Occupational Safety and Health Administration--to complain about unsafe working conditions owes a debt to the young people who died at Triangle.

Even more sweeping changes included in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal more than 20 years after the fire have their roots in the tragedy: 40-hour workweeks, the minimum wage, and laws to protect children from spending their young years in factories.

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But the Triangle fire also remains a symbol of how little some things change. More than 80 years later, both across the continent from the still-standing building in Lower Manhattan and in developing nations around the world, the garment industry continues to be plagued by sweatshops.

In 1995, more than 70 Thai workers were found to enslaved at an El Monte garment factory, where they had been held against their will for as long as seven years. Seven of their captors eventually pleaded guilty to holding people in indentured servitude and other charges.

And this summer, the last of a series of settlements was reached with the companies that hired the factory to produce clothing.

Another settlement this past summer involved upscale clothier Guess Inc., which agreed to pay up to $1 million in a 1996 lawsuit claiming that contractors for the jeans maker were underpaying their garment workers in Los Angeles. This came even after Guess--which admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement--had signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor, as many clothing companies do, promising to make sure its contractors comply with wage laws.

In 1998, a series of garment workers, speaking before a panel of federal and state labor officials in Los Angeles, described working in windowless lofts for bosses who paid less than minimum wage and sometimes did not pay at all.

Just as in the Triangle case, most of the workers in these high-profile modern sweatshop cases are immigrant women. And as in Triangle, the workers in recent cases often have been creating designer garments headed for upscale department stores.

Every year in Washington Place, where the Triangle fire occurred, people gather to remember what happened there 88 years ago. The building is now home to New York University.

The only sign of the fire is a plaque on the building, which reads: “Out of their martyrdom came new concepts of social responsibility and labor legislation that have helped make American working conditions the finest in the world.”

About This Series

For the remainder of the year and ending Jan. 1, 2000, The Times will reproduce a page from its archives recording events that shaped the history of the 20th century. An accompanying essay will help place the events in historical context.

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