3/25/1911: The Triangle Fire

[Kasept]

For those who may have forgotten, or never knew in the first place, why labor unions exist...


Shirtwaist sacrifice remembered at 99
1911 fire deaths inspired garment union; ex-senator remembers grandmother
By CASEY SEILER, State editor

http://www.timesunion.com/ASPStories...4&LinkFrom=RSS

ALBANY -- Former Republican Sen. Serphin Maltese returned to Albany on Tuesday to join a commemoration of the 99th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, the historic conflagration that cost 146 lives but became one of the turning points in the development of the labor movement in America.

Maltese spoke about his own tragic connection to the March 25, 1911, fire: His 38-year-old grandmother, Catarina Maltese, was the last victim to be identified in the blaze that also killed her two daughters. The fire, likely caused by a discarded cigarette or match, swept through the top three floors of a 10-story building in Manhattan. The high number of fatalities among the workers -- most of them recently arrived immigrants -- was due to locked exits and shoddy fire escapes.


NEW YORK TIMES account, March 26, 1911


THE TRIANGLE FACTORY FIRE: An online museum exhibit

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

Many of the Triangle factory workers were women, some as young as 15 years old. They were, for the most part, recent Italian and European Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States with their families to seek a better life. Instead, they faced lives of grinding poverty and horrifying working conditions. As recent immigrants struggling with a new language and culture, the working poor were ready victims for the factory owners.

For these workers, speaking out could end with the loss of desperately needed jobs, a prospect that forced them to endure personal indignities and severe exploitation. Some turned to labor unions to speak for them; many more struggled alone. The Triangle Factory was a non-union shop, although some of its workers had joined the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.