Triangle Shirtwaist fire: Why it inspires plays and poetry readings 100 years later
A defining moment of labor history, the deadly fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York remains a powerful touchstone even after 100 years.
One hundred years ago today, at 4:45 p.m., a fire ignited in a scrap basket inside New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Within 28 minutes, the factory burned down and 146 workers died, mostly young immigrant women or children. Some fell to their deaths leaping from windows, others perished falling down empty elevator shafts. The majority were trapped inside the main work floor because the exit doors were locked by management – supposedly to prevent theft.Skip to next paragraph
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This tragedy gave human face to a vigorous labor movement, and nearly a dozen workplace-safety laws were passed in the immediate wake of the disaster. It was the worst workplace disaster in the nation until 9/11, but cultural observers say the incident has penetrated the national consciousness in ways that go beyond safety regulations and labor organizing.
The fire was an important shot across the bow in the nation’s developing historical consciousness, says playwright and historian Daniel Czitrom, a Mount Holyoke College professor whose play “Triangle,” co-authored with Jack Gilhooley, opens in New York City in two weeks. “It marks the real start of the 20th century understanding of the role that government can have in our public life,” says Professor Czitrom, improving workplace safety and conditions for a largely invisible immigrant class.
Some 400,000 people – nearly 10 percent of the population of Manhattan at the time – turned out for the funeral procession, notes Kathy Newman, English professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “It has become a singular historical moment in the collective memory we have about ourselves as a country of immigrants,” she says. All the cultural iterations over the years, from the first poem published the day after the fire, up through Friday’s reading of all the names of those who died, form a collective memory of ourself as a nation, she adds.