The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory by Charity Barger

She remembers that after she made her way down to the street, she looked back up to the top of the building, engulfed in flames. Pauline Pepe, a 19-year-old who lived in New York's Little Italy, survived the fire. It was their only way to escape the flames - doors were locked to prevent theft, the building's single fire escape collapsed, and after several trips to rescue workers, the elevator broke down. Scores of workers jumped from the eighth and ninth floors of the 10-story building to their deaths. Most of the people who perished in the fire were Jewish or Italian-American women - and several of the victims had been in the U.S. Twenty-two of the fire's victims were laid to rest at Mount Richmond, and the Hebrew Free Burial Association still uses the cemetery to inter Jews who cannot pay for their burial.

On a recent morning, a small group of men and women met to recite the Jewish mourner's prayer for Triangle workers buried in the Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island. On the 100th anniversary of the tragedy, people around the country are remembering the victims, and the labor legacy they inspired. The deaths of 146 garment workers in New York City - most of them young, immigrant women - led to legislative reforms on a national level and spurred the growth of organized labor. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire on March 25, 1911, remains one of the greatest workplace tragedies in American history. On March 25, 1911, the New York City building caught fire, and 146 workers lost their lives in one the country's worst workplace tragedies. Most of the victims were recent Italian or Jewish immigrants.Young Laborers: Most of the garment workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory were young, immigrant women. That day, 146 garment workers, 123 women and girls and 23 men died. The workers either succumbed to the smoke and flames or leapt from the building's high windows down to the streets below. The foreman with the keys to unlock the doors managed to escape, leaving hundreds of others behind. With buckets of spare fabric and shirts hanging from the ceiling, the flames quickly spread to the upper floors, trapping workers desperate to get out.īut doors to the stairwells were locked, a common practice at the time so bosses could prevent unauthorized breaks and alleged theft. On March 25, as the workday was ending, a fire broke out on the 8th floor. While many factories reached a union agreement with workers to improve conditions, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory did not. Years before the fire, garment workers across the city went on strike to improve workplace conditions and wages. Fire fighters try to put out the 1911 catastrophic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Building which killed 146 workers as a result of looked doors and missing fire escapes.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory by Charity Barger