|
|
|
The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which killed 131 women and 15 men in twenty minutes, was not unexpected. In a 1909 citywide strike known as "the uprising of the 20,000," New York's garment workers had demanded, among other things, improved fire safety conditions in the sweatshops. A 1910 fire in a Hackensack, New Jersey sweatshop had killed 25 workers, most of whom, like the Triangle workers, jumped to their deaths to escape the flames. After the Hackensack fire, New York Fire Chief Edward Croker warned that the conditions in New York were perfect for a similar or greater tragedy. But despite years of warning, no one was prepared for the realities of women and girls plunging nine stories down onto the street, smoke trailing from their clothes and hair; or the water from the fire hoses turning red with blood from the corpses as it washed into the gutter; or rows of smoldering skeletons still seated at their sewing machines because the tables were too close for the women to escape. William G. Shepherd, a reporter for the New York World who witnessed the fire, wrote, "I remembered their great strike of last year in which these same girls had demanded more sanitary conditions and more safety precautions in the shops. These dead bodies were the answer." But the bodies had voices of their own, and answered back. For once, the unmistakable reality that they presented drowned out the protests of the shop owners and landlords that laws requiring them to install sprinklers, conduct fire drills, or have easily accessible exits were infringements on their property rights. Triangle's most direct and wide-ranging legacy was the creation of the New York Factory Investigating Committee. The sheer scale and breadth of the Committee's activities dwarfed any previous attempt to address workplace safety. Between 1911 and 1912, the FIC held 59 hearings throughout the state and produced 7,000 pages of testimony from union leaders, employers, and workers not only from the garment industry, but also meat packing, bakeries, chemical plants, print shops, and the lead trade. Thirteen pieces of legislation came directly from the FIC's work between 1912 and 1914, creating new protections against inadequate ventilation, fire hazards, sanitation, and health issues. The FIC, according to reformer and future Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (also the first woman in the Cabinet), made the Triangle fire "a torch that lighted up the industrial scene." During FDR's New Deal, the groundbreaking legislations that followed Triangle became models for national policies. The lighted green EXIT signs, alarms, and fire extinguishers that fill nearly all public spaces today are so common that they have almost become as invisible as ghosts. But their presence today is the result of a series of revolutions in public policy, built largely on the corpses of 146 workers. Despite the seeming innocuousness of these fire safety features, those corpses show a clear vision of the alternative. Neither is the Triangle fire something that stays easily buried in the past. As industry scatters its manufacturing to less regulated parts of the world, the story seems to play itself out all over again. On May 10, 1993, the Kader Industrial factory in Thailand, which made stuffed dolls of characters like Bart Simpson, Mickey Mouse, Big Bird, and Elmo, burned down, killing at least 213 workers and injuring 469. As with Triangle, all but 14 were women or girls, some as young as 13. The exits were closed off to prevent theft, and many of the workers died jumping from the third floor to escape the flames. One survivor, a woman named Cheng, described making the same choice that was made in New York City 82 years before: "[People were shouting], 'There is no way out. The security guard has locked the main door out!' It was horrifying. I thought I would die. I took off my gold ring and kept it in my pocket, and put on my name tag so that my body could be identifiable. I had to decide [whether] to die in the fire or from jumping down from a three stories' height." |
More Information |