American History Tellers - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire - Revolt of the Girls | 2

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

Inspired by the labor strikes at Triangle and other factories in Lower Manhattan, more than 30,000 garment workers took to the streets of New York in protest in late 1909. For the first time, an industry of women sought not to just halt production at one factory — they wanted to put the brakes on an entire trade. With over four hundred garment factories shut down, factory owners banded together with police and the courts to fight the striking workers. But as the labor movement attracted new high-society allies, internal politics began to fracture the labor movement, threatening to derail the entire cause.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's November 22nd, 1909. You're an unemployed sleeve setter at the Triangle Factory. For six weeks, you've been walking the picket lines. This evening, you're hurrying to the vast basement hall at Cooper Union College to hear debates over a general strike. You arrive late, and there's no seats left. The main hall and adjoining rooms are crammed full of people. Your friend Clara is toward the back, leaning against a pillar,

and you weave through the crowd to join her. She smiles when she sees you. Ah, well, look who decided to show up. I had to stay and help the printers at Clinton Street get posters ready. Well, you've missed 100% of nothing. All these thinkers and writers, the president of the Trade Union League, none of them can decide what they want to do. You listen as the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward drones on, and you feel your excitement fade into tedium. I thought they were going to call for a strike. Well, that's what everyone's

waiting for, but all this talk. And for what? Clara's shifting back and forth on the balls of her feet, antsy, excited. You enjoy her company because she makes you feel excited too, like anything is possible. But anything is a scary word. Hey, are you feeling okay after what happened? Me? Oh, I'm fine. Don't worry about it.

But you do. Just a few weeks ago, Clara was beaten badly leaving the picket line. The men who beat her, not one but three, were hired by the owners of her factory. But she looks okay now. No bruises that you can see. The next speaker is an old Jewish man with a large jaw. Clara leans over to you and whispers, that's Samuel Gompers. He runs the AFL. A fat lot of good they've done for us. The two of you listen some more, waiting for something, anything to happen.

But Gompers just goes on and on and on. And when he finally finishes his speech, you turn to Clara, but she's disappeared. You crane your neck, looking around. Then you spot her. She's making her way down to the stage, where she climbs the steps and pushes past some of the speakers. They're as shocked as you are. She steps up on the platform. There's a determined look on her face as she begins to speak in a loud and clear voice. I'd like to say a few words. Your jaw is on the floor.

You can't believe her courage. I've listened to all the speakers tonight. Frankly, I don't have the patience for any more talk. I'm a worker, one of those who feels and suffers from all the things you've been discussing endlessly. Now it's time to do something. I move that right now we declare a general strike. The entire hall of Cooper Union bursts into cheers and applause. It's pandemonium. Hundreds of women all echo Clara's call for a strike. You can't believe this is really happening. A general strike? A nervous thrill runs up your spine. It's taken so long to get to this moment. A city mapped by picket lines. It's almost too good to be true. From Wondery comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules.

Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? Paul can do it. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. Music Clara Lemlich was a young shirtwaist maker originally from the Ukraine. When she spoke up at the Cooper Union meeting, she spoke in Yiddish to an audience who understood the language. Her message was clear to everyone. It was time for all the different factories across town to band together.

For the first time in the city of New York, an industry composed primarily of women would seek to halt production of not just one factory, but an entire trade. Sides were chosen. On one side stood the workers striking for better pay, shorter hours, and better workplace conditions. On the other side were the hard-driving entrepreneurs trying to expand their businesses. The general strike would polarize the city of New York, which had only just recently emerged from the 1907 recession. It would electrify the immigrants of the Lower East Side whose concerns had finally taken center stage. And it will pit city officials, the police, and the courts

against a seemingly comic foe, teenage women. But as the general strike continued, police, and the courts against a seemingly comic foe, teenage women. But as the general strike continued, the biggest threat to their cause wouldn't come from any of those forces. It would be the internal debates that would threaten to fracture the movement from within. This is Episode 2, Revolt of the Girls. After the Cooper Union meeting, thousands of garment workers abandoned their workstations. In over 400 factories, sleeve makers and cuff setters, closers, hammers, joiners, finishers, and pressers stood up and walked away from their work tables and into the streets of Manhattan. By the end of the week, approximately 30,000 workers would be on strike. The newspapers

would call it the revolt of the girls. The young shirtwaist maker with flashing dark eyes who had called for the strike fired up popular imagination overnight. Clara Lemnick's name was suddenly everywhere. She was the voice, the personification of the young, marginalized woman worker. Just 21 years old, Lemnick was no more than five feet tall, but she

carried herself with swagger. She wore her long, dark hair tied in the back and swept over to the right. She embraced the romance of socialism and the worker's struggle. Attractive and magnetic, she was aware of but not intimidated by the attention from her male comrades. Like Pauline Newman, who grew up working at the Triangle factory, Lemlich was an Eastern European immigrant who had entered the shirtwaist trade at a young age. But unlike Newman, who left shirtwaists behind for the Socialist Party and the trade leagues, Lemlich continued to work in the garment factories. She became good at draping, taking the ideas of a blouse designer and translating them into fitted garments trimmed

and molded on a tailor's dummy. It was a difficult and relatively well-paid position in the shirtwaist hierarchy. Lemlich was also an inquisitive woman, which led her to explore the city's free libraries, even after an 11-hour shift. Her curiosity also led her to a transformational late-night walk with a male garment cutter from her factory. She later recalled, We walked 40 blocks, and he gave me my first lesson in Marxism. He started with a bottle of milk, how it was made, and who made the money from it through every stage of its production. Not only did the boss take the profits, but not a drop of milk did you drink unless he allowed you to.

It's funny, you know, because I'd been saying things like that to the girls before, but now I understood it better, and I began to use the example more often, only with shirtwaists. The constant turnover of the industry allowed Lemleck to keep a low profile. Her skill at draping allowed her to jump from job to job. In three years, she worked in three different blouse shops, stirring up small strikes in every one. By November of 1909, Lemlich had grown into a full-blown agitator and became an

officer of Local 25, the shirt-waste makers' union in Manhattan. When she stepped onto the stage at Cooper Union, the sheer force of her personality exploded and electrified the crowd, and it helped detonate a walkout the likes of which the city had never seen. More than 70 garment factory owners immediately bowed to union demands because their operations couldn't survive a general strike. They even agreed to a closed shop of strictly union employees. They gave workers a 52-hour workweek and a 20% pay increase. But there were over 400 shops across the city of New York, and most of the owners of those steadfastly refused to capitulate. Among them were the Triangle owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris,

who sent letters out to their fellow shirtwaist manufacturers. Gentlemen, you are aware of the agitation that is now going on in our shops. Our satisfied workers are being molested and interfered with, and the so-called union is now preparing to call a general strike. In order to prevent this irresponsible union from gaining the upper hand, let us know as soon as you possibly can if you would be willing to form and join an Employers Mutual Protection Association. The letter worked.

More than a hundred factory owners quickly convened at the Palatial Hoffman House Hotel, where Blank and Harris were about to lay out the plan for the fight to come. It came down to this. There would be no surrender to the unions. The manufacturers would do everything in their power to break the strike, and they could lean on the city authorities when they needed extra muscle. This was the birth of the Allied Waste and Dress Manufacturers Association. Job one of this association was to weaken the strikers' position. At Triangle, the owners

posted newspaper ads for replacement workers, and soon enough the factory was up and running again, although at a reduced capacity. During these early weeks of December, replacement workers brushed past striking women who tried to convince them not to take their seats upstairs but to join the cause instead. The replacement workers, or scabs as the strikers called them, insisted they were desperate for work and willing to accept the same poor conditions the strikers rejected. For them, the strike was an opportunity. Rumors swirled that Italians, the newest of the European immigrants, were more likely to be scabs. Black and African-American women, all but barred from the industry entirely, felt they owed the strikers nothing and were also eager to finally

join the workforce. But even then, shirtwaist strikers did not think of scabs as enemies. Mary Dreyer and the Women's Trade Union League drew up rules for the picketers, and those rules specifically barred shouting at or touching the strikebreakers. Even the word scab was never to be used. A striker was advised to wear her best clothes on the line, to be polite and proper, and above all, not to intimidate. The league did not want to incite violence of any kind. Away from the picket lines,

Clara Lemleck spent weeks at meeting halls all over the Lower East Side, giving speeches to raise money and awareness. She sold newspapers on street corners. She exhorted anyone within earshot to join the cause. With thousands of unemployed workers forming hundreds of different pickets, Lemlich realized communication across the different work sites was absolutely essential. Clinton Street Hall, the headquarters of Local 25, became a round-the-clock meeting hub. Sarah Comstock, writing for Collier's Magazine, described the scene. Here union strikers have poured in to compare grievances and hearten one another. They have toiled day and night, endeavoring to bring order out of chaos.

Blackboard bulletins keep the workers informed of shops settled where they might find work again. Through the clamoring, old bearded men pass the days with their baskets of pretzels and apples. A penny or two will buy such a lunch. Additionally, recent graduates from elite women's colleges like Smith and Wellesley also arrived at Clinton Hall and joined the picket lines. Though they didn't have to work, they understood that the strike was not only a worker's cause,

but a woman's cause. One woman, Violet Pike, a recent graduate of Vassar College, didn't just carry protest signs on the street. She also stepped into the city court system, paying the fines of the strikers who'd been arrested. Since Mary Dreyer's arrest on a Triangle picket line one month earlier, animosities against the striking workers had died down. But after the general strike was declared,

hired strikebreakers were once again disrupting the pickets and assaulting strikers. And, once again, New York police were taking the side of the factory owners all across the city. Officers arrested and locked up women for trumped-up charges like disturbing the peace and harassment of working girls. And in the magistrate's courts, things were no better. Manhattan's women workers, though striking peacefully in their best clothes, had suddenly become public enemy number one. Number One. Imagine it's early December 1909. You're 16 years old, sitting in the airless chambers of the Jefferson Market Court. All you can see of the magistrate is a pair of shoulders and a head peering out from behind his gavel. Above him is a large clock. You can feel it every time it ticks. The magistrate's voice thunders from high above the bench.

This court will now hear charges in the case of Annie Albert and Rose Purr. This morning, you took your place on the picket line with a dozen other co-workers and your friend Rose. You draped a sash over your shoulder and sang some songs and stomped your feet to keep warm. But at 7 o'clock, the scabs arrived in a limousine. You tried to hand one of them a newspaper, but instead she attacked you and knocked you to the ground. Before you could even stand up, you were arrested. When Rose tried to help, she was arrested too. So now, after waiting all day in a tiny, horrible-smelling holding cell underneath the courthouse, you finally understand

what is happening. We'll now hear the first witness. An Italian man you've never seen before testifies that he saw you and Rose both attack a worker. Next up is a foreman from the Bijou factory who testifies to the same thing, though neither you nor Rose has ever worked for him. And before you can even speak, the magistrate gives his verdict. The court finds both defendants guilty of assault. You feel sick to your stomach, but Rose pats your arm reassuringly. It's okay. It's all part of the process. At our union meeting, they told me this is how it would be. They fine us, then we pay up.

That's when a young woman in the gallery stands up. She's Miss Pike, one of the college students. She's only a few years older, and she carries herself with such authority. Your Honor, I'm here to pay the bail for these two women. But the magistrate shakes his head. No, I don't believe so. When charitable women simply appear with bail, it weakens the decisions reached here. Your strikers are clogging up my court, and I will not have it. But what would you have these women do, Your Honor? Young women, your strike is an offense against God. I'm committing you to the workhouse. I believe that will give you time to think over this and other matters. Your Honor, is there any way this

sentence can be reduced? It cannot. Rose Purr and Annie Albert are sentenced to five days hard labor at Blackwell's Island. As a bailiff hustles you back down to the cells, you turn to Rose, frantic. I thought you said there was a process. But Rose's face has gone pale. All her confidence is gone. You're going to prison. The prospect completely terrifies you. The jailing of Little Rose Purr and Annie Albert illustrated the severity of the city court's response to the strike. Prison guards escorted the girls by boat to a workhouse on what is now Roosevelt Island. They were stripped and draped in heavy woolens much too large for their small frames.

Then they were sent to work with thieves and addicts and prostitutes scrubbing floors. When they showed no aptitude for that, they were transferred to the prison sewing department. When Purr and Albert were released the following week, they discovered that in their absence, the general strike had swelled to epic proportions. Public opinion, at least through the lens of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World newspaper, had landed squarely on the side of the unions.

Strikers were greeted with applause and parades. Meanwhile, 50 more workers from Triangle walked out in solidarity in early December. Blank and Harris had to shut the factory down for a day. Progress for workers, it seemed, was marching forward. But progress didn't come free. 30,000 striking workers meant many more mouths to feed, more rents to be paid, and the strike committee was fast running out of funds. That's when an unlikely set of allies appeared on the scene. But with these allies came new problems that

would threaten to derail the strike altogether. We'll be right back. further than Paul Bergrin. All the big guys go to Bergrin because he gets everybody off. You name it, Paul can do it. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? From Wondery, the makers of Dr. Death and Over My Dead Body, comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules. Isn't it funny how witnesses disappear or how evidence doesn't show up or somebody doesn't testify correctly. In order to win at all costs. If Paul asked you to do something, it wasn't a request. It was an order. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad free right now by joining

Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities.

From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast, The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker raided ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science, and religion, and how even today we remain enthralled to his strange creatures of the night. You can binge all episodes of The Real History of Dracula exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus and the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. In the plush carpeted parlors and sitting rooms of well-moneyed New York houses, women of society were reading coverage about the strike. The New York world played up the strikes,

calling the winter strike, quote, the Lexington and Bunker Hill of women's revolution for her rights. Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont read these papers too, but she was also hearing about the outrageous treatment of the female garment workers from her friends. Belmont was a suffragist at heart. She felt these problems could best be solved once women had the right to vote. At age 56, Belmont had led a charmed and tumultuous life. Born to a wealthy plantation owner, Belmont's first husband had been William K. Vanderbilt,

the shipping magnate. But she had divorced Vanderbilt for a banker named Belmont. When he died 12 years into their marriage, Alva found herself with a means to freely pursue her own interests at her own pace. And Mrs. Belmont's pace was fast. She quickly fell in step with the working women, spending nights in the Jefferson Market Court

posting bail for arrested strikers. She drummed up fundraising events at gilded Park Avenue addresses. Belmont and her progressive society matrons even earned a nickname among the unionists, the Mink Brigade. Using her connections, Belmont announced that she

would hold the largest labor meeting yet in support of the Shirtway Strikers at the massive Hippodrome Amphitheater. The monster meeting lived up to its hype. On December 6th, 7,000 people poured through the gate, including strikers, bishops, and suffragettes. But special mention was given to those who did not attend, the politicians of Tammany Hall. Speakers pointed up to the empty seats that had been saved for the mayor, the police commissioner, and other city officials. The Times headline read, Throng! Cheers on girl strikers. They also printed a complete list of city officials who had declined Belmont's invitation. From his offices at the Wigwam, Tammany Hall's headquarters on 14th Street,

Charles Murphy, the man who really ran New York City, read these headlines too and couldn't help but be distressed. Tammany was on the wrong side of the conversation. But down by Washington Square, Max Blank and Isaac Harris, the owners of the Triangle Factory, were actually heartened. It seemed the Hippodrome meeting had exposed cracks in the strikers' resolve. The New York World reported,

The strikers listened eagerly, gravely, but without enthusiasm to the speakers who had advocated equal suffrage as the key to the labor puzzle, and in the end, rejected the proposition. The newspaper quoted one exasperated female strike leader as saying, We want something now, not next summer. Men have the right to vote, and it doesn't seem to have helped them. How will a women's vote help women? We would still now be on strike. Blank and Harris took this as a good sign. The factory owners had taken a financial hit from the strike, but they weren't having much trouble finding replacement workers, even if they had to pay them a slightly higher wage. Triangle had even instituted worker-friendly policies during the strike. During lunch, a crank-operated phonograph was hauled out onto the factory floor. There was free tea and oranges and dancing, with prizes given to the workers with the best steps.

The Manufacturers Association was holding the line. When the shirtwaist unions offered to negotiate, the association refused them flat out. The owners agreed among themselves it was only a matter of time before the strike effort would crumble. It was now mid-December. Snow was blanketing the city, and the strike fund was almost completely dried up. But around this time, the embattled shirtwaist strikers found help from a very unexpected place, the family of America's greatest capitalist. Ann Morgan was the daughter of the steel magnate J.P. Morgan, who ruled the financial markets and the banks. At 36 years old, Ann was J.P. Morgan's youngest child. She was described as athletic, sharp-witted,

and unpredictable. Even with her annual allowance of $20,000 a year, over $550,000 today, she felt a solidarity with the working women marching the picket lines. She shared her thoughts with reporters. We can't live our lives without doing something to help them. Of course, the consumer must be protected, but 52 hours a week seems little enough to ask. When Morgan got involved with the Strikers, it alarmed factory owners. Unlike suffragist Alva Belmont or the trade union league's Mary Dreyer, Anne Morgan's name wasn't synonymous with just money, but power. The owners didn't dare tar her name in the press for fear that they would draw the wrath of her father. Morgan used this to her advantage, enlisting the help of other women like herself,

women whose fortunes reached well into the millions. In 1903, Ann Morgan helped form a private women's-only club that rivaled the city's all-male metropolitan and union clubs. It was named the Colony Club, and its members were a who's who of industry that included four Vanderbilts, four Whitneys, and Mrs. John Jacob Astor. It was at the Colony Club on December 15, 1909, that Ann Morgan held an unusual luncheon, introducing the picket girls of the Shirtwaist Strike to the Gilded Era's 1%. Imagine it's Friday in December, just around noon. It's been a hectic season for the Colony Club.

You've been busy helping plan charity balls and the upcoming Christmas extravaganza. But today, you've sat down to a lunch of salmon and scalloped potatoes with a group of 10 young shirtwaist workers in what must be their best dresses. The girls want you to support their strike. You know how this goes. A marginalized group sings a sad song, and then you open your purse. But you're inclined to do it, because their working conditions do sound horrific. At the dining table next to you, a girl named Clara has been staring at her place setting for nearly a full minute,

looking confused. Finally, she turns to you and asks, Excuse me, what is the extra fork for? It's for your entree. The fork you're holding was for the service plate. Well, I knew it was one or the other. I had a 50-50 shot. You recognize her as one of the strike leaders, though she doesn't look any older than your 17-year-old daughter.

Clara, have you given any thought to college? There are a number of women's institutions I'm sure would be happy to receive you. I've been saving up for medical school, actually. Well, that's wonderful. A very serious profession. Though it doesn't matter much now. My savings are mostly used up. Still have to pitch in on rent. I've got no money coming in. But shouldn't your union help pay those expenses while you're on strike? They do. But there's some worse off than me. A lot of these girls don't have an extra dime to their name, much less any saved up. Times are tough for everyone. You should go down to the shops yourself. Triangle, Leiserson's,

Worcester. You should see what the conditions are like with your own eyes. I'm not sure they would let me in. You'd get further inside than I would. Clara, tell me, what will you do once this strike is over? You mean if we win? That's right. Won't the owners be angry with you? Do you think you'll be able to continue to work under their growing resentment, having to pay you more for what they consider less work? Ma'am, I don't think I really care about the owners being angry. It's not about emotions or feelings. These men who own these factories, they're greedy. They're capitalists. They want to turn human beings into machines. All that matters is that we make them a profit. You're taken aback, but she's not insulting you. Her eyes are large and dark and earnest.

That's a fine point, but wealth alone is not an evil thing. There will always be one person whose job it is to tell another person what to do. If, ma'am, that's probably right. The luncheon comes to an end, and the girls all file outside. You're about to leave, too, when a friend of yours approaches. She's effusive as she tells you about her conversation with another shirtwaist worker. I think it's all so brave what these girls are doing. I know this money will help them, and they're going to need all the help they can get. You nod and smile. Yes, yes, it's all very nice, but you know, they're just a bunch of socialists. Thanks to Ann Morgan, the Colony Club luncheon was attended by 150 of the richest women in New York.

The publicity it generated up and down Park Avenue helped raise thousands of dollars. Pro-strike sentiment was at its peak, and money was coming in from everywhere. But whose strike was it? Was it a fight for the cause of labor, for the tenets of socialism? Or was it a fight for women's voting rights? Local 25 and the Women's Trade League Union happily accepted the donations that were pouring in with no strings attached. But some leaders worried about the direction of the labor movement. Theresa Malkiel was a city organizer with deep roots in the American Socialist Party. She helped found the New York Call,

the socialist newspaper that breathlessly covered the general strike. Like Clara Lemlech and many other labor leaders, the 35-year-old Malkiel's politics were rooted in the life of the factory floor and the philosophy of Russian thinkers. On December 21st, society women staged a motor parade. Fifteen chauffeur-driven limousines cruised down Fifth Avenue and through the Lower East Side. Pro-strike banners were stretched across the sides of their vehicles. Malkiel winced at the sight of the strikers' sentiments plastered on limousines. She found it humiliating for the labor movement.

She was sick of the publicity stunts and was eager to get down to the heart of the issue, pushing worker demands in negotiations with factory owners. She knew that to make progress, workers needed real leverage, and to get real leverage, the entire garment industry had to unionize. All factories would need to be closed shops. She felt this was the only effective way to strengthen workers' position in future negotiations. By Christmas of 1909, the strikers and their newfound support had dampened the Allied Manufacturers Association's plans for a swift collapse. Max Blank and Isaac Harris's

consortium had paid off the cops, used the courts to their advantage, and engaged professional agitators. But they hadn't counted on how the media would make them appear. The image of young women in sashes standing up for better pay and recognition proved too great an adversary. Triangle and the association's other hundred factories admitted defeat. They'd been slowly choked to death by bad publicity and slowed production lines. And so finally, they moved to negotiate. The news echoed joyously from Union Hall to Union Hall across the east side of Manhattan. But the unions, now assured of their place at the table, couldn't agree on what specifically they should demand.

On January 2, 1910, a blizzard wrapped Carnegie Hall in a layer of thick, wet snow. Inside, the scene was humid and chaotic. Women's suffrage, working conditions, and a fully unionized industry were the topics of the night, and the debates were fierce and often combative. Clara Lemlich was there, helping Theresa Malkiel unfurl the Socialist Women's Committee banner. Even Rose Purr climbed up on stage to tell the hundreds of people in the auditorium about her five days in the workhouse. Attorney Morris Hillquitt followed,

and he tore into the city's corrupt, partisan judicial system. Another lawyer rebutted Hillquitt, arguing that the judiciary was not corrupt, that lawmakers were not inherently antagonistic towards the working class. The audience responded to this opinion coldly. But Leonora O'Reilly, a 40-year-old veteran of organizing and trade unions, took up the baton from Hillquit and raged against a corrupt judiciary.

The strike, O'Reilly shouted, was the best thing to happen to the workers of this city. After just six weeks, they were more united than they had been after years of preaching and sermonizing. She assured the crowd that the system was rigged against them, that their success now hinged on aggressive tactics and solidarity along socialist principles. The audience cheered. But this feeling of solidarity would not last. The following day, horrified at the revolutionary turn the proceedings at Carnegie Hall had taken, Ann Morgan withdrew her support from the strike.

Samuel Gompers of the AFL was beside himself. Moderate measures, he argued, would be the most successful. Socialism had no place in his American labor movement. The unions found themselves in a new, confusing position. They were finally winners. The general strike had worked, but it would be meaningless if they couldn't agree on their final terms. It was clear with the dawning of the new year that the labor movement so carefully stitched together could, at any moment, be ripped apart. This is the emergency broadcast system.

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In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names photos addresses and specific instructions for people's murders this podcast is the true story of how i ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger and it turns out convincing a total

stranger someone wants them dead is not easy follow kill list on the wandry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening. By February 1910, the Triangle Factory and its Allied Waste and Dress Manufacturers Association suggested a compromise with the workers. After more than 12 weeks of strikes, Max Blank offered returning workers a 12% pay raise, a 52-hour work week, and no more charges for supplies like needles and thread. But he rejected the notion of a closed shop,

insisting his factory would hire both union and non-union workers. The resolution was blared in a New York Call headline, Triangle Company Yields After Bitter Fight. For Local 25, the strike was an enormous victory in giving workers a much stronger hand at the bargaining table. They signed contracts with 354 shirtwaist firms, all of which agreed to hire only union workers.

Membership in the once struggling union now numbered in the tens of thousands. Little by little, the dust settled. Operators at Triangle returned to the same jobs at the same machines for more money, but now with little ability to renegotiate. Safety and working conditions were issues that remained on everyone's minds, but they had taken a back seat to demands over pay and hours, and now it seemed they would never be resolved. Without full unionization of their workplace, without the closed shop, the citywide strike was the workers' last chance to bargain for better conditions.

Another similar uprising would not come again. In the fall of that year, on October 15, 1910, fireman Ed O'Connor of Engine Company 72 made a routine inspection of the ash building housing the Triangle factory. Triangle manager Samuel Bernstein welcomed him, and they spent the morning moving across all three floors of the factory. The fireman measured staircases, took notes on the two elevators, and inspected the fire escape. He declared the staircases and fire escape good and pronounced the building

fireproof. He also noted that there was a 5,000-gallon tank of water on the roof and over 200 pails of water around the 10-floor building for emergency use. But 10 years earlier, back when construction of the new Ash building was nearly complete, a city building inspector named Rudolph Miller had written an alarming memo to the building's architect, Julius Frank. He noted that the Ash Building had two 10-story staircases that were less than three feet wide, the width of a person walking single file. Because the stairwells were so narrow, the stairway doors opened inward, toward the factory floor, instead of outward, as recommended to allow people to leave rapidly in case of fire. New York state labor law specifically stated that factory doors should open outwardly,

but a loophole in the wording of the law allowed broad interpretation. State law also mandated that doors should not be locked. Miller also noted that the building's lone fire escape didn't lead to the street as required. Instead, it ended abruptly right over a second floor skylight. Anyone who used the fire escape would find themselves dangling a full story from safety above a window of glass. The architect, Frank, replied that changes would be made, but they were not. One month after the triangle inspection, the Wolf Muslin Undergarment Factory in Newark, New Jersey, caught fire.

Twenty-six workers, most of them women, were trapped on the fourth floor of the building and killed in the blaze. In a newspaper article, New York City Fire Chief Edward Crocker noted that had the fire broken out in Manhattan during working hours, it would be accompanied by a terrible loss of life. The observation alarmed the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. The organization was now determined to make improved safety conditions their next demand. By March 1911, a joint committee of union and city workers conducted a survey of New York City buildings for fire safety. They found 99% of the buildings unsafe. A fire sprinkler system, already common in New England mills, was not required by law, and neither were fire drills. A fire prevention expert named Peter McKeon had inspected the

Triangle factory as well. Among his findings, the doors to the stairwells were kept locked during business hours. Keys tied to scraps of cloth were kept by the floor manager. When McKeon asked why, he was told the locks were in place because it was difficult to keep track of so many girls. McKeon also recommended a safety expert named HFJ Porter to help lead the Triangle factory and practice fire drills. Porter wrote a letter to the Triangle owners asking to meet with the employees, but he never heard back. He should not have been surprised. It seems that few factory owners took his recommendations seriously. Later, he would recall, there are only two or three factories in the city

where fire drills are in use. In some of them where I've installed the system myself, the owners have discontinued it. One man whom I advised to install a fire drill replied to me, let them burn. They're a lot of cattle anyway. Imagine it's March, 1911. You're the manager of the eighth floor at the Triangle Factory. And sure, you may be Max Blank's cousin, but nepotism had nothing to do with it. You know Max well, and he's no pushover, even for family.

You like it down here on eight. You worked hard and kept your head down for your promotions, and you appreciate it when your employees do the same. And it doesn't hurt that some of them aren't bad-looking. They're sweet, in a doe-eyed, clumsy way. And there's so many of them. They just keep coming and going. A lot of them are named Rose. Sometimes you think of them that way. A bunch of little roses. It's the end of another work day. The girls gather their coats and hats. Some head for their dressing rooms to change or put a little makeup on. But everyone eventually has to get in line. You approach the woman at the front and she opens her purse.

Okay, thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. Thank you. One girl after another opens her purse and you check around inside. We can speed this up if you already have your purses open. Come on, step forward. One at a time. It's a tedious process. There's over a hundred purses to check, and ever since the strike in 09, Max wants you to be especially vigilant. So one by one, the women go through the exit door and down the stairs. Excuse me, sir. One of the newer girls, another Rose, is standing by the front of the line. Would it be all right, sir,

if I leave now? You're asking me if you can jump the line? I don't know. These women are all waiting patiently. I don't think it'd be fair to them. Sir, I have no purse today. As if to prove her point, she does a quick twirl, holding out her jacket to show there's nothing inside.

She's one of the better looking ones, but her face is very serious. Sir, my brother's in a hospital. He was hit by a car. Visiting is until eight, and I don't want to miss it. I'm sorry to hear that. You can see her frustration. The line is stretching all the way back across the floor. Okay, that's fine, but use the Washington Place door, okay? Rose looks confused. What door, sir? The other door, the Washington Place door, by the elevators, over there. You point across the room towards the windows. Thank you, sir. I'm sorry, I didn't even know there was another door. It's fine, good luck. Hope your brother comes out okay. You watch as Rose dashes off across the room. You silly girls. They work here how long and they

don't even know there's a second door? You shrug and turn back to the line of purses and women. You can feel them growing more and more impatient. They'll just have to wait their turn, and they really ought to learn better English. Many of the striking workers came back, and business as usual returned to Triangle. As 1910 rolled over into 1911, the shirtwaist factory matched its output from the years before. So far, Blank and Harris's dire predictions about the decline of shirtwaists as a fashion item had not come to pass. Triangle's was the largest blouse-making concern in New York, and their shipping plant sent out 2,000 garments a day to women across America. By this point, Blank and Harris ran multiple factories,

Imperial Waste Company, Diamond Waste Company, and International Waste Company, just to name a few in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. On the whole, the employees of Triangle, Diamond, Imperial, and many others came and went anonymously and quickly forgotten. Among these anonymous workers was Kate Alterman. She moved to New York in 1910 from Philadelphia, where her parents lived. In her late teens or early 20s, Alterman lived alone in the Bronx, where she practiced her English every day on grocers, at the department stores, and with the other girls on the Triangle Factory floor. She made friends at the factory, Russian immigrants like her also learning English.

They would test each other, going back and forth in two languages, sometimes three if they knew Yiddish. Not much is known about Kate Alterman's life, but what is known is that on a Saturday morning in March, she came to work at the Triangle factory along with over 400 other workers. The week had been long and tedious, as most weeks were, but everyone was cheered by the prospect of a shortened weekend workday. Taking the elevator up eight, nine, ten floors to their sleek, modern factory, inspected and declared up to code only months before, no one had any reason to think this day would be different than any other.

Not the owners, not the managers, and not the women whose lives would all be changed by the ringing of the closing bell. Next week on American History Tellers, fire engulfs the Triangle Factory, a Manhattan in mourning begins the process of assigning blame, and a young social reformer becomes embroiled in statehouse politics. From Wondery, this is American History Tellers. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me,

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