1. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
One of the worst disasters since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

2. The Triangle Waist Company was in many ways a typical sweated factory in the heart of Manhattan,
Low wages, excessively long hours, and unsanitary and dangerous working conditions were the hallmarks of sweatshops.

3. Even though many workers toiled under one roof in the Asch building, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners subcontracted much work to individuals who hired the hands and pocketed a portion of the profits.

4. Subcontractors could pay the workers whatever rates they wanted, often extremely low. The owners supposedly never knew the rates paid to the workers, nor did they know exactly how many workers were employed at their factory at any given point. Such a system led to exploitation.

5. Even today, sweatshops have not disappeared in the United States
Even today, sweatshops have not disappeared in the United States. They keep attracting workers in desperate need of employment and illegal immigrants, who may be anxious to avoid involvement with governmental agencies.

6. Recent studies conducted by the U. S
Recent studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor found that 67% of Los Angeles garment factories and 63% of New York garment factories violate minimum wage and overtime laws. Ninety-eight percent of Los Angeles garment factories have workplace health and safety problems serious enough to lead to severe injuries or death.
Resource: UNITE! Resource Page On Sweatshops

7. Many of the garment workers before 1911 were unorganized, partly because they were young immigrant women  intimidated by the alien surroundings. Others were more daring, though. All were ripe for action against the poor working conditions.

8. In 1909, an incident at the Triangle Factory sparked a spontaneous walkout of its 400 employees. The Women's Trade Union League, a progressive association of middle class white women, helped the young women workers picket and fence off thugs and police provocation.

9. At a historic meeting at Cooper Union, thousands of garment workers from all over the city followed young Clara Lemlich's call for a general strike.
Women raised their hands voting for the strike and pledging to walk the picket lines for its success.  This action brought them into clear conflict with police, judges, lawyers, employers, but also their families and other workers.

10. Local 25 began the strike with $10 in their treasury
Local 25 began the strike with $10 in their treasury.   A special edition of the city's Socialist paper, The New York Call, told the story of the strike in English, Italian and Yiddish.  It was donated by the publisher and sold by union members to raise money for strike expenses. 

11. Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Waist Company. Within minutes, the quiet spring afternoon erupted into madness, a terrifying moment in time, disrupting forever the lives of young workers.
At the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place despairing onlookers saw fire fighters struggle to control the blaze while young men and women escaping the fire jumped to certain death.  Sprinkler systems were available which might have controlled the fire but they were considered by many factory owners to be too costly.

12. By the time the fire was over, 146 of the 500 employees had died
By the time the fire was over, 146 of the 500 employees had died. The survivors were left to live and relive those agonizing moments. The victims and their families, the people passing by who witnessed the desperate leaps from ninth floor windows, and the City of New York would never be the same.
Bodies lay piled on the sidewalk along Greene Street together with hoses, fire rescue nets, and part of a wagon.  All were drenched by the tons of water used to contain and extinguish the fire.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. New York City, with its tenements and loft factories, had witnessed a growing concern for issues of health and safety in the early years of the 20th century.

16. Few of the terrified workers on the 9th floor knew that a fire escape was hidden behind iron window shutters. The ladder descended next to the building forcing those fleeing to climb down through flames as they struggled past other shutters stuck open across their path. 

17. The design had been deemed inadequate and the material from which it was made was insubstantial.  After a few made their way down, the heat of the fire and weight of the people caused the ladder to twist and collapse dropping many who had chosen it as their lifeline. 

18. The Triangle Fire tragically illustrated that fire inspections and precautions were woefully inadequate at the time.

19. Workers recounted their helpless efforts to open the ninth floor doors to the Washington Place stairs.

20. They and many others afterwards believed they were deliberately locked-- owners had frequently locked the exit doors in the past, claiming that workers stole materials.

21. Despite the shouts of the crowd below not to jump, many girls made the choice to leap rather than be burnt. Poignant and horrifying eye-witness accounts tell of girls jumping arm in arm, and of a man and a women kissing one another before falling to their deaths.

22. By the time Engine Company 72 arrived from 12th Street (only 6 blocks away) they had trouble maneuvering their hose wagon into position since they didn't want to grind the already six limp forms lying in the street. The bodies were still falling.

23. Five girls had already jumped before the firefighters arrived on the scene. The firefighters could do little anyway - their ladders did not reach as high as the 8th floor, their nets and blankets broke under the weight of the falling girls.

24. The distraught fire fighters pulled out a life net and attempted to catch one girl but three more hurled themselves immediately after the first and all four bounced out hitting the concrete. A policeman and fireman held a horse blanket and tried to catch the next hurling body. The blanket split in two and the body hit the pavement -- dead.

25. 146 workers died in the Triangle Factory Fire
146 workers died in the Triangle Factory Fire. Some jumped to their deaths, others burned or suffocated.

26. Fifty bodies were recovered on the 9th floor of the building alone, whilst 30 bodies were found at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

27. Because the city morgue was too small to hold the large number of fire victims the covered end of the Twenty-sixth Street pier was converted into a temporary morgue. 

28. Thousands gathered there even before the ambulances arrived
Thousands gathered there even before the ambulances arrived.  Through the night and into the next day they waited, eventually identifying the dead from a familiar ring, a mended stocking, a scrap of clothing. 

29. Protesting voices arose, bewildered and angry at the lack of concern and the greed that had made this possible. The people demanded restitution, justice, and action that would safeguard the vulnerable and the oppressed.

30. Outraged cries calling for action to improve the unsafe conditions in workshops could be heard from every quarter, from the mainstream conservative to the progressive and union press.

31. The Women's Trade Union League led a campaign to investigate such conditions among Triangle workers, to collect testimonies, and to promote an investigation.

32. Within a month of the fire the governor of New York State appointed the Factory Investigating Commission. For five years, this commission conducted a series of statewide hearings that resulted in the passage of important factory safety legislation.

33. Frances Perkins, later to become Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, watched the Asch Building burn, an event that influenced her decision to become a lifelong advocate for workers. Perkins assisted in the factory investigation from her position as executive secretary of the New York Committee on Safety.

34. Eight months after the fire, a jury acquitted Blanck and Harris, the factory owners, of any wrong doing. The task of the jurors had been to determine whether the owners knew that the doors were locked at the time of the fire.

35. Customarily, the only way out for workers at quitting time was through an opening on the Green Street side, where all pocketbooks were inspected to prevent stealing.

36. Worker after worker testified to their inability to open the doors to their only viable escape route ? the stairs to the Washington Place exit, because the Greene Street side stairs were completely engulfed by fire.

37. More testimony supported this fact
More testimony supported this fact. Yet the brilliant defense attorney Max Steuer planted enough doubt in the jurors' minds to win a not-guilty verdict. Grieving families and much of the public felt that justice had not been done. "Justice!" they cried. "Where is justice?"