Photo Archives WEST Spring 13: Triangle Shirt Waist Company Fire

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm24.html

Photographs alone have the power to evoke emotion, but when they are used to help illustrate a tragic news story, they have the power to inspire change. Without photographs we can only imagine what something looked like and often we are only capable of using images from our own memory banks to help make sense of something we’ve read. This is why photojournalism is such an important part of the American story, because with photographs, the story becomes that much more real. With photographs, the public doesn’t need to rely on the pictures in their mind. They are given first hand accounts into what really happened and that triggers an emotion. For some, that emotion is anger, fear, or grief. It is undeniably human and has lead to movements that have changed the human experience for Americans. For American laborers this meant the promise of safe and fair working conditions.

Ladders and hoses were not adequate to subdue the fire. http://bit.ly/ZjHKBR

On Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911 a fire broke out on one of the top floors of the Asch Building, where the Triangle Shirt Waist Company workers were finishing up a days work. In less than 20 minutes, 146 of the 500 young immigrant workers lost their lives. They were trapped. In an effort to prevent workers from stealing material, managers would lock the doors. Those who survived the fire testified that the exit door was locked. The fire escape did not lead everyone to safety and broke under extreme weight of people trying to escape. Many went to the windows and waited for firemen to rescue them. The ladders and water could not reach them, so they decided to jump instead of burning alive. The Triangle Shirt Waist Fire is known as one of the worst workplace disasters since the Industrial revolution.

Next of kin attempt to identify victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, New York City, 1911; © Bettmann/Corbis

Makeshift morgue for families to identify their loved ones. http://bit.ly/ZjJ2Nr

Workplace safety, child labor laws, OSHA, labor unions, and collective bargaining are all concepts we are familiar with whether we have worked a day in our lives or not. They are a part of our culture. They are part of our vocabulary. Today’s laborer, service industry worker, and corporate executive are all afforded the right to work in a safe environment. We accept this and we expect this. Sadly, this was not always the case. Factory workers at the turn of the century were often exploited and worked under unsanitary, hazardous conditions, enduring long hours, low wages, and high safety risk. Many Triangle workers were women, some as young as 13. Most were Italian and Russian immigrants, seeking better lives for themselves and their families. They were desperate for work and struggling to survive, making them vulnerable to industrial greed and easy victims of exploitation for fear of losing their jobs.

Police officers arranging bodies of workers who leapt to their death. http://bit.ly/ZjIsiz

The Triangle Shirt Waist Company was a sweatshop owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. These two entrepreneurs subcontracted hiring managers who had the authority to control wages and hours any way they saw fit. Since they were given a percentage of profits, it was in their best interest to overwork and underpay their vulnerable immigrant work force. Although Triangle was a non-union shop, some workers were members of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. Concerned for the health and safety of desperate immigrants, the ILGWU fought hard to organize women working in the clothing trade to achieve better working conditions and improved legislation. Before 1911 many of workers in the garment district of Manhattan were unorganized. After the Triangle fire tragedy movements toward collective bargaining and unionization grew stronger.

Young garment workers organizing for fair and safe working conditions. http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2061268_2258989,00.html

Photographs of the horrific tragedy helped strengthen the organized labor movement by making the public more acutely aware of exactly what happened. Without these photographs, the horrible visual aspect of the story could not have been told. The New Yorkers living and working in the area where the tragedy occurred unfortunately had a first hand account of that terrible afternoon. The rest of the newspaper reading world could experience a similar shock through the graphic pictures reproduced en-mass via the printed news.

Post fire, the people of NYC were grief stricken by this needless tragedy. People demanded justice and called for the owners to be put on trial. The Joint Relief Committee and the American Red Cross helped the survivors get the care they needed. Blanck and Harris were indicted on April 11^th for manslaughter in the second degree under section 80 of the Labor Code, which mandated doors be unlocked during working hours. They were acquitted on December 27^th only 23 days after the trial began. The jury was not convinced that the owners knew the doors were locked. Grieving families, as well as the public, did not feel justice was served. 23 individual civil suits were filed. Blanck and Harris ended up paying each family $75. The Triangle Shirt Waist Company closed in 1918. The owners never acknowledged any wrong doing and described their factory as a model of clean and sanitary conditions.

(Laborers couldn't even stop long enough to have this photo of the factory floor taken. Notice the floor manager on the right looking at the camera.

http://bit.ly/17Afxdy)

I think we must thank the photojournalists and the newspapers for illustrating this tragic news story with documentary photographs. By appealing to the broken hearts, shock, and anger of the American people, they helped strengthen the movement to protect workers from exploitation.

Cornell has a great web source, which includes newspaper articles, first hand accounts, photographs, a timeline of events, and much more on the Triangle fire.

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/index.html

Blog about the 101^st anniversary of the fire.

http://bit.ly/134M6Nm

Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

Some information on the fire from the Department of Labor

http://www.dol.gov/shirtwaist/