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niyad

(112,431 posts)
Wed Mar 25, 2015, 09:45 PM Mar 2015

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire


Coordinates: 40°43?48?N 73°59?43?W
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire Image of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25 - 1911.jpg
Time 4:40 PM (Eastern Time)
Date March 25, 1911
Location Asch Building, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Deaths 146
Injuries 71



The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan, New York City on March 25, 1911 was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and 23 men [1] – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women aged 16 to 23;[2][3][4] of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was Providenza Panno at 43, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and "Sara" Rosaria Maltese.[5]

Because the owners had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits, a common practice used to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and pilferage,[6] many of the workers who could not escape the burning building jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors to the streets below. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

The factory was located in the Asch Building, at 23–29 Washington Place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, now known as the Brown Building and part of New York University. The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.[7]
The Triangle Waist Company[8] factory occupied the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the 10-story Asch Building on the northwest corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, just east of Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. Under the ownership of Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the factory produced women's blouses, known as "shirtwaists." The factory normally employed about 500 workers, mostly young immigrant women, who worked nine hours a day on weekdays plus seven hours on Saturdays,[9] earning for their 52 hours of work between $7 and $12 a week,[6] the 2014 equivalent of $166 to $285 a week, or $3.20 to $5.50 per hour.[10]

As the workday was ending on the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire flared up at approximately 4:40 PM in a scrap bin under one of the cutter's tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor.[11] The first fire alarm was sent at 4:45 PM by a passerby on Washington Place who saw smoke coming from the eighth floor.[12] Both owners of the factory were in attendance and had invited their children to the factory on that afternoon.[13] The Fire Marshal concluded that the likely cause of the fire was the disposal of an unextinguished match or cigarette butt in the scrap bin, which held two months' worth of accumulated cuttings by the time of the fire.[14] Beneath the table in the wooden bin were hundreds of pounds of scraps which were left over from the several thousand shirtwaists that had been cut at that table. The scraps piled up from the last time the bin was emptied, coupled with the hanging fabrics that surrounded it; the steel trim was the only thing that was not highly flammable.[15] Although smoking was banned in the factory, cutters were known to sneak cigarettes, exhaling the smoke through their lapels to avoid detection.[16] A New York Times article suggested that the fire may have been started by the engines running the sewing machines, while The Insurance Monitor, a leading industry journal, suggested that the epidemic of fires among shirtwaist manufacturers was "fairly saturated with moral hazard."[13] No one suggested arson.

. . . . .

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

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Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (Original Post) niyad Mar 2015 OP
... shenmue Mar 2015 #1
did you know that the owners were amoung the first to cash in on "dead niyad Mar 2015 #2
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