History Daily - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

March 25, 1911. A fire breaks out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, killing 146 garment workers trapped inside. This episode originally aired in 2024. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

Is new cotio, Ki-kiris. Hae asuntolanae muttomastomast Aspanktomptomast, Aptuptopatheat, Avaeoanhawattas. S-pank, Suomen Mutkotomintombe, It's March 25th, 1911, at the Triangle Shirtways Factory in New York City. 16-year-old garment worker Ethel Monick sits at her station on the ninth floor

gazing out the window. It's 4.45, and she's about to go home after a grueling 10-hour shift, but she notices something odd. rising in front of the window. She leans out and sees flames below her, erupting from the eighth floor. Recoiling, she turns and shouts fire to the other women who are all still sitting at their machines.

Ethel runs for the staircase leading down to Green Street, but too many other workers have done the same. There's no way for Ethel to push through. Instead, she turns to the elevator, where another desperate crowd has formed. Over screams and cries, Ethel hear someone say that the elevator is broken, ducking under the thickening smoke. Ethel runs for the second staircase leading to Washington Street.

She pulls on the door, but it's locked. She pulls again, frantically hoping it's only stuck, but it won't budge. Other women join her at heaving and pushing at the door, pounding their fists against it in a futile effort to break it down. The flames are now everywhere. Some of the women's dresses are beginning to catch fire. some women's hair have already caught. Finally, Ethel looks to the fire escape,

which is on the opposite side of the room. But like the Green Street staircase, it's too packed with people for anyone to get through. Ethel turns to the nearest window and looks down at a gathering crowd of shock spectators below. With nowhere else to turn, Ethel considers jumping out. But the thought of tumbling down

and hitting the pavement is too much, and so she hesitates. Then someone grabs her shoulder and pulls her away, and into the elevator, which is operational after all. As Ethel descends slowly to safety, she tears at her hair and face, hoping to wake up from a nightmare. But it's not a dream.

But once Ethel makes it out of the building and onto the street, she sees the horrifying reality of what's happening, looking up to watch helplessly as dozens of women leap from the windows, as Ethel consider doing herself, burning as they fall and crumpling on the pavement. The Triangle Shirtways factory fire killed 146 garment workers in less than 30 minutes. It was the worst industrial accident in New York's history, caused by a confluence of unsafe working conditions common to the city's hundreds of sweatshops.

A labor movement was already stirring in New York City before that day. Workers of all industries were organizing, forming unions, and striking for rights. But they had met stiff resistance from police, politicians, and factory owners until the Triangle Shirtwaste Factory Fire galvanized the movement and its leaders called for legislation to prevent another tragedy like the fire which killed so many on March 25, 1911. From Noisor in Airship, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is March 25th, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaste Factory Fire. It's April 2nd, 1911 at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan at a memorial gathering held eight days after the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaste factory. Rose Schneiderman, a tiny red-headed 29-year-old, stands before a large audience of union

leaders and politicians calling for their attention. Rose is a Polish immigrant. Her family moved to New York when she was eight years old, and she started working in garment factories at 16, making caps in a dim, crowded building on the Lower East Side. A fire broke out soon after she began working there, which terrified her. She asked management to address safety concerns like block exits. When she was ignored, she organized the first all-woman chapter in the United Cloth, hat, cap, and millinery workers' union, traditionally a male organization.

After that, she realized she had an act for organizing and decided to dedicate her life to workers' rights. At 23, Rose made a name for herself delivering speeches during the New York Capmaker's strike, of 1905. Four years later, during the shirtwaste worker's strike of 1909, Rose took on a leadership role, rising to the vice presidency of the powerful Women's Trade Union League. The shirtwaste worker strike was the largest all-woman strike in U.S. history and ground the garment industry to a halt. The organizers demanded reforms to their 70-hour work week increased wages from $4 per day to five, still half that would have men earned, and improved safety conditions. Factory fire escapes were commonly old and rusted, and factory owners often locked their workers inside

to prevent them from taking unapproved breaks or stealing merchandise. Out of the city's 600 garment factories and shops, the Triangle Shirt Waste Factory was the first to strike. The factory's owners, Max Blanc and Isaac Harris, refused their workers' demands. They did not trust unions, and when the workers ceased production and began demonstrating on the street, they hired beggars and sex workers to attack the protesters, hoping to scare them into dispersing. They also bribed the police to watch on and arrest any strikers who defended themselves. Two months later, a general strike was called in solidarity with the triangle factory workers. Led by Rose, 30,000 garment workers all over the city stopped working and started demonstrating.

Like Rose, nearly half of the city's garment workers were Yiddish-speaking Jews and recent immigrants from Poland or Russia. Back in Europe, many were active in a social. reformer party known as the Bund. So they knew how to organize, provide for one another, and how to withstand pressure. Their efforts worked because in early 1910, factory owners and union organizers reached in agreement. Wages would increase by 20 percent, and weekly hours would decrease by 10.

But triangle factory owners Blanc and Harris refused to address the safety concerns at their factory. A year later, when the fire broke out, the locked doors and the rusted fire escape, which collapsed under the weight of fleeing workers caused a massive death toll. Now, eight days after that inferno, Rose Schneiderman addresses an audience of influential elites gathered at the Metropolitan Opera. She condemns them for their inaction, comparing the industrial machinery the city's poor work at every day to torture devices used in the Spanish Inquisition. Rose asks why the lives of working women are so expendable and why property

and profit are so sacred. Then she calls for immediate legislative action. Three days later, in pouring rain, Rose leads a funeral parade of 140,000 workers. Six horses pull an empty hearse down Fifth Avenue, followed by a procession of survivors. 250,000 more stand in solidarity with the marchers and pay their respects as spectators. This massive demonstration attracts the attention of lawmakers in Albany, who heed Rose's demands. In June, they pass a law creating the Factory Investigating Commission, taking advice from consultants like Rose.

This commission investigates the working conditions at over 3,000 factories in New York State, from meatpacking plants and bakeries to garment factories and chemical manufacturers. They hold 59 hearings and collect testimony from nearly 500 witnesses, mostly workers who attest to unsafe conditions. They interview union leaders and safety experts, expanding the scope of the investigation to stop the spread of infectious diseases, which are all too common in factories. Then 13 of the 17 bills submitted by the Commission to the New York State Legislature

eventually become law, forcing factory owners to abide by stricter safety and sanitation measures. Locked factory doors are outlawed, and fire escapes are routinely inspected. Buildings are modified for greater ventilation and machines are equipped with safety guards. Beyond improving conditions for hundreds of thousands of industrial workers in New York, the commission will also bring workers' rights and safety into the national consciousness. Many other states will soon establish their own safety commissions, but reforms don't heal the anger that Rose and others feel in the wake of the tragedy at the Triangle Shirtwaste Factory.

The survivors of the fire want justice. They will soon have their chance as factory owners Max Blanc and Isaac Harris are about to stand trial. It was a keycarriss a small-a-tae A-lina, take it to mehabilist. Hai, you're just to-s-lainan, muttomastomast, S-Mobile. S-pank, Suomen-Mutkitts. Are new-co-co-coat-o-Kikaris. Hae-asuntomest, Mankx-Pankst,

Paikot-Mobile-Mutkstapank. A-Mobile and T.A.m., S-Pankt, Suomen, Mucatombeam KATH. It's December 4th, 1911, 9 months after the deadly fire at the Triangle Shirtwaste Factory. The factory's owners, Max Blancke and Isaac Harris, known as the shirt-waist kings of New York walk up the stairs into a Manhattan courthouse.

An angry crowd of relatives of the victims are waiting for them, jeering the men as they enter the building. Immediately after the fire, Blanc and Harris were asked by the press for comments. In the face of all evidence to the contrary, the two men claimed that their factory was fireproof and had just recently been inspected and improved by the Department of Buildings. The district attorney dismissed these claims and indicted both men on charges of manslaughter.

Now, the prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Charles Bottswick, seeks to prove that Blanc and Harris knowingly violated a labor code which prevents doors from being locked during business hours. The defense, led by the notoriously skilled trial lawyer Max Stoyer, intends to prove that Blanc and Harris didn't know that the door was locked. D.A. Botswick focuses his attention on the ninth floor, where most of the deaths occurred. Over several days, he calls 103 witnesses to the stand. The other door leading to Washington Street was locked all day and remained so under most circumstances. This allowed Blanc and Harris to easily search every worker's bag as they left each day via the Green Street exit. Though there was very little evidence their workers were stealing from them, Blanc and Harris still fixated on the idea. Botswick argues that this locked door contributed directly to dozens of deaths.

He calls Kate Alterman to the stand, who says she watched her friend Margaret T. Schwartz, die right in front of the door. Kate initially joined Margaret and trying to break it down, but then Margaret's dress caught fire. She fell to the floor and burned to death in seconds. Kate goes on to provide a shocking account of her own escape, detailing how she turned her coat inside out so the flammable fur was not exposed, covered her hair with scrapped cloth, and sprinted into the flames filling the Green Street staircase. Instead of trying to run down to the street, she climbed to the roof where she waited for firemen to rescue her. It's moving testimony and seemingly damning for Blanc and Harris. But while cross-examining Kate, Attorney Stoyer unveils

the defense's devious strategy. He asks Kate to repeat her story about watching Margaret die again and again. Kate repeats certain phrases with each rendition, and Stoyer points this out to the jury, claiming that the witnesses have been coached by the prosecution. When it's again In Botswick's turn to question the witness, he points out that Kate Alterman only repeated answers when asked repeated questions, but the damage is done. After that, it's Stoyer's turn to call witnesses. He calls mostly men, clerks, salesmen, engineers, painters, and security guards to recall occasions on which they pass through the supposedly locked Washington Street door. His star witness is May Levantini, a factory worker who claims the key to the lock hung next to the door on a piece of string. She

recalls opening the door and finding flames on the other side, closing the door and running for the elevator. District Attorney Botswick accuses her of lying, pointing out that dozens of other women reported escaping down the Washington Street steps from other levels, and none recalled flames in the stairway. But May sticks to her story. After three weeks of testimony, both sides rest their cases. The jury deliberates for just two hours and returns with a verdict not guilty. The jurors believe that the door was locked, but that Blanc and Harris did not know about it. Upon hearing this verdict, the gallery erupts in anger as the victorious factory owners flee the courtroom surrounded by police. They are escorted to safety while a mob chases

them down the street demanding justice. But less than two years later, Blanc and Harris will again face charges over unsafe conditions in their factory. They're accused of locking another vital exit door. And what's more, it's found that they allow scraps of highly-flicts cloth to be piled six feet high in wicker baskets, practically inviting another fire to start under their watch. This time they will be found guilty and fined $20 for the infractions. The year after this, the families of the fire's victims will finally win a civil suit against the factory owners, who will be forced to pay $75 to every family. Ultimately, though, Blanc and Harris will profit from the tragedy. Their insurance company pays them $400 per victim.

While reformers like Rose Schneiderman succeeded in bringing about change in the fire's aftermath, the titans of industry seem untouchable. It will take greater influence to win justice for workers, which will finally come when a witness to the fire is appointed to the presidential cabinet. It's a new cotio, Ki-Karissa. Hae asuntolina, muttomastly, A.Pankistomest, painkist, paikot comptomps. Avae, T, Linawapest. S-pank, Suomen Mutquettomint.

It's March 4, 1933 in Washington, D.C., 22 years after the Triangle Shirtwaste factory fire. President Franklin Roosevelt has just arrived in the Oval Office after delivering his inaugural address to the nation. The Great Depression is devastating the country, and Americans are desperate for relief. Francis Perkins stands before Roosevelt. She's about to be sworn in as the president's labor secretary, making her the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo stands ready to administer her oath. Francis was working to help the poor long before the Great Depression ravaged the nation, making her uniquely qualified for the cabinet position.

Her college thesis at Columbia University was a paper studying malnutrition in New York City children, and when she graduated in 1910, she went to work for the city, inspecting sanitation conditions in bakeries. On the day of the Triangle Shirt Waste Factory Fire, Francis was having tea with friends in nearby Washington Square Park. Following the sounds of sirens, she arrived on the scene in time to see women leaping from the windows. Francis was horrified and immediately went to work for the newly formed factory investigating commission. She rose to become the commission's executive secretary. Then in 1928, under then-governor Roosevelt, she was appointed New York State Industrial Commissioner.

And when Roosevelt won the presidency in 1932, he asked for, Francis to serve as his Secretary of Labor. She agreed, under several conditions. First, that he passed a Social Security Act establishing old age pensions, unemployment payments, workers' compensation, and aid to the disabled. Second, that he establish a minimum wage and a 40-hour workweek, and third, that he ban child labor. Roosevelt agreed to Francis's demands, and now he sits at his desk while Justice Cardozo asked Francis to lay her left hand on the Bible. She does and raises her right hand. By the time President Roosevelt dies in 1945,

Francis Perkins will have helped the president accomplish all of the goals she set for the nation 12 years earlier. Her programs will become part of what's known as the New Deal. And though Roosevelt now receives most of the credit for guiding the nation through the Great Depression, it was Francis Perkins' experience fighting for the poor in New York City, which informed her policies.

She later claimed that the New Deal was born the day 146 garment workers died, perishing in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire on March 25, 1911. Next on History Daily, March 26, 1964, the smash-hit musical Funny Girl opens on Broadway and puts rocket boosters under the career of its star Barbara Streisand. From Noisor and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham, audio editing by Mohamed Shaziv, sound design by Mom. Bac. Music by Thrum. This episode is written and researched by Owen Long, edited by Dorian Marina. Managing producer Emily Burke. Executive producers are William Simpson for airship and Pascal Hughes for Noisor.