March 25, 1911

Many articles and commentaries have been written about this tragic day 100 years ago.  But it is important to never forget this tragedy, just like we should never forget other disasters like the Bhopal catastrophe.

Downtown Manhattan, Greenwich Village. All of a sudden window glass bursts in a sudden explosion. Black and grey smoke starts drifting though the streets. Women are screaming for help. The people in the street stand scared. James Meehan, a police officer, jumps off his horse and runs into the burning building.

It is 4:40 PM on Saturday, March 25th, 1911 when hell breaks loose. Only five minutes later the 600 female workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory would have finished their work shift. It is the end of a long and stressful work week for young women workers between 16 and 26 years old. Most of them are immigrants from Russia, Italy and Germany. They work 6 days and 72 hours per week. Weekly earnings: $ 7.

Despite the bad working conditions the company is the only opportunity for the young immigrants to earn money. The owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris who are also immigrants from Europe, know this very well. They rule the company with an iron fist and whoever complains is fired.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company is located on the three upper floors of the ten-story building. The structure was completed in 1901 and meets the fire codes of the era. However, there is no sprinkler system installed. The owners have never performed any fire drills although there have been a number of small fires in the past.

Nobody knows why the fire started this Saturday afternoon. It is assumed that a still burning cigarette butt was the cause of the fire. The floor of the manufacturing space was always covered in flammable pieces of cloth which would spread the fire rapidly. This day will end with the death of 146 workers.

The inferno starts in the southeast wing of the 8th floor. The flames spread fast through the area as most of the furnishings are made from wood. Within seconds thousands of finished shirts on the sewing tables are in flames. The panic starts. The seamstresses try to escape the building via a stairwell that is still accessible. An accountant informs his colleagues on the 10th floor by phone about the fire. Some workers escape through a door to the roof of the building where they will later be rescued. But the phone connection to the 9th floor is interrupted and the workers still don’t know that the fire is blazing on the floor below.

James Meehan cannot see anything. When the police officer gets to the 8th floor the smoke is black and he is almost without orientation and it is hard to breathe. The 6 feet flames use up all the oxygen. The heat is unbearable. Lifeless bodies block the access to the elevator; some of them are burned beyond recognition. In the stairwell the seamstresses are falling and tripping over each other and trample each other to death.

Together with Joseph Zito, the elevator operator and another employee of the company, Meehan is able to start the elevator again. At least five times they are able to ride up to the 8th floor and the lobby and rescue workers until finally the heat and the fire destroy the elevator. The men are able to rescue more than 130 workers.

Only when the flames are breaking through the floor, the seamstresses on the 9th floor realize the situation. The stairwell in the southeast wing of the building is no longer a possible fire exit route. The door to a second stairwell is locked from the outside. The owners locked the door to prevent thieves entering the building. There is no longer an accessible stairwell. There is one more chance for the young women, a fire ladder on the outside of the building. But the ladder is damaged and collapses. 24 workers fall to their deaths.

When the first fire fighters reach the site the flames has already engulfed all three floors. The fire fighters are the last hope for the women on the 9th floor. The equipment is set up and the ladders are pulled out. And then the bystanders witness the unbelievable: the ladders are only long enough to reach up to the 6th floor. Although since 1900 more than 800 new buildings were constructed which had more than 6 floors, the equipment of the fire fighters was never replaced and updated.

The young women on the 9th floor are faced with death. Many decide to jump out of the windows from the 9th floor. Some hold hands while they jump, two or three at a time. The fire fighters try to catch the women with nets. Without success. Even the safety standards of the safety nets are not designed for jumps higher than from a 6th floor. None of the women survives. Only 18 minutes after the fire started the flames have destroyed all three floors completely.

In April 1911, after it is made public that the owners had locked the escape routes on the 9th floor, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris are accused of manslaughter. Due to their connections in city politics both are acquitted. A civil lawsuit is initiated by 23 families of the diseased and Blanck and Harris have to pay $ 75 per victim in 1913, altogether only a fifth of the insurance compensation that they received for the loss of the business.

Shortly after the disaster there is a public outcry for more workplace safety. In 1900 the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union had been established, but this union of the female workers had not had any influence on their rights in the manufacturing companies. On June 20, 1911, only three months after the fire, Governor John Alden Dix signed a law which initiated the foundation of the Factory Investigation Commission. Frances Perkins, later the Labor Secretary, was the chairman of the commission and fought for integration and implementation of worker’s rights, resulting in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Frances Perkins was one of the eye witnesses of the disaster of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. After she retired from active politics she told reporters her reasons for her initiative to fight for worker’s rights. She said that the tragedy she witnessed on March 25, 1911 was forever etched into her memory and the disaster was the reason why she dedicated her life’s work to the fight against inhuman working conditions.

Based on an article in www.spiegel.de 03.29.11

Meike Patten, MPSafetyTraining