What the Triangle Shirtwaist fire means for workers now by Hilda L. Solis US Sec of Labor

[Omaha Steve]

I don't often ask for R's. Friday is the 100th anniversary of the fire. I'm asking for R's on this.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...triangle-shirtwaist-fire.../ABVAFIs_story.html


David Karp/ ASSOCIATED PRESS - Mourners honor victims of New York's 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire at the Mount Richmond Cemetery in Staten Island on March 1. 22 of the fire's 146 casualties were buried in the cemetery.


By Hilda L. Solis, Friday, March 18, 8:35 PM ([e-mail])

A century ago this week, in Lower Manhattan, a young social worker named Frances Perkins was having tea at the Greenwich Village townhouse of her friend, the socialite Margaret Morgan Norrie. They were interrupted by clanging fire truck bells. Then they heard the anguished screams: “Don’t jump!”

They raced out of the townhouse and ran toward the commotion: a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, just off Washington Square. Flames and black smoke shot from the top floors, and as they watched in shock, young girls and women, some alone, some clutching hands, inched up to the windows’ ledges — and jumped to their deaths.

Perkins would describe the scene in lectures later: “They couldn’t hold on any longer. There was no place to go. The fire was between them and any means of exit. It’s that awful choice people talk of — what kind of choice to make?” She added: “I shall never forget the frozen horror that came across as we stood with our hands on our throats watching that horrible sight, knowing that there was no help.”

The sewing factory employed more than 500 people, who worked long hours for low wages, in wretched and unsanitary conditions. They turned out “shirtwaists” — blouses with puffed sleeves and tight bodices popularized by the “Gibson Girl.” The factory owners had locked the fire-escape doors. The seamstresses were trapped when fire raced through the sweatshop just before closing on March 25, 1911.

In less than 20 minutes, 146 people, mostly Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls, were dead. The last six victims were officially identified just a few weeks ago. Triangle outraged the public and offered a grisly example of how powerless workers were without collective bargaining, because unionized garment workers received better pay and had safer conditions. And it galvanized Frances Perkins.

FULL story at link.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Frances Perkins, the first woman appointed as Secretary of Labor,

wrote this country's first workplace safety standards when she held a position in New York State government in response to The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, which she witnessed.

. . . Perkins's critical role in improving workplace safety after the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Perkins helped lead the push for reform of New York state's labor code. The new legislation became a model for the rest of the country.

Perkins, a social worker in New York at the time of the Triangle fire, saw workers jump to their deaths from the burning factory.

"She witnessed this horrible spectacle, then played a key role in fire safety . . ."


http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/news/FrancesPerkins022409.html

[SidDithers]

2. K&R...

thanks for posting.

Sid

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. I am now reading the book "Triangle," by David Von Drehle

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

[nichomachus]

4. Why does the GOP hate American workers?

[eowyn_of_rohan]

5. This is the first thing that came to mind when the Gov of Wisconsin

proposed destroying the Unions. We learned about this in Elementary School in Madison, back in the early 60's. I always looked for the ILGWU label in clothing when I was a kid.

[Omaha Steve]

6. Kick

[malaise]

7. K & R

Very important

Watch HBO tonight 9.00pm ET

Workers of the world - unite and wake up!

[Raine]

8. THANK YOU for posting this. nt

:thumbsup: