1911 New York Factory Fire Was Fuel for Labor Laws

The victims were mostly women aged 16 to 23 who worked long hours in terrible conditions to support themselves and their families.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was just one of hundreds of factories across New York City and the Northeast that churned out goods desired by a rapidly industrializing society.

Immigrants supported New York clothing industry

	The Triangle building as it looks today, in New York City.

Most of the women who worked at Triangle Shirtwaist were immigrants from Europe who had come to New York City for a better life and more opportunities. Instead, they found themselves toiling 13 hours a day for 13 cents per hour and living in crowded tenements.

Workers organize for better conditions

	Anna Morgan, daughter of wealthy banker J.P. Morgan, joined the cause of the striking garment workers in 1910.

For the hundreds of women working in New York City’s garment factories, the American Dream was taking too long to come true. They wanted better wages, improved working conditions and a safer environment on the factory floor.

One by one, the factory workers began to organize into unions and went on strike, refusing to work until they got what they wanted.

The workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory joined hundreds of other striking garment workers on the picket lines, but Harris and Blanck refused to give in to their demands, hiring policemen and even prostitutes to beat the protesters and try to break up the strike.

News of the workers’ plight reached Anne Morgan, the daughter of wealthy banker J.P. Morgan. Anne Morgan took up their cause and helped them win some victories from the factory owners, including higher wages and shorter working hours.

Tragedy grips a city

	People examine the coffins of victims who died in the Triangle fire. 146 people died in the worst factory disaster in New York City's history.

Harris and Blanck were furiously competing with other factory owners who made shirtwaists (fashionable women's blouses) and they feared their workers might steal shirts, fabric or thread. They checked every worker’s bag at the end of each day at one factory exit; all other exits were locked.

On March 25, 1911, someone dropped a lit match or cigarette on the eighth floor of the Triangle building. Harris and Blanck were alerted by telephone and escaped quickly, but no one informed the factory workers on the ninth floor until the building was engulfed in flames.

With the main stairway on fire and the other doors locked, the trapped workers had no escape routes. They burned to death on the factory floor, stampeded toward the elevator shaft or jumped to their deaths from the windows. Firemen, whose ladders were too short to reach the ninth floor, watched helplessly with thousands of onlookers as the workers died.

Improved labor laws result

	A funeral parade for the Triangle fire victims makes its way through New York City. The tragedy sparked a wave of new labor legislation.

After the fire, Harris and Blanck were tried for manslaughter but eventually acquitted. In a later settlement, they agreed to pay $75 per life lost in the fire, but just two years after the fire, they were found locking exits at another of their factories.

As people learned what had taken place at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, they became outraged and demanded improved labor laws. In June 1911, the New York state legislature established the Factory Investigating Commission, or FIC, to look into the safety of workplaces across the state.

In 1912, the legislature passed eight labor bills recommended by the FIC that addressed sanitation, rest periods, child labor, work hours for women and children, and injuries sustained on the job. The legislature eventually passed 25 more bills recommended by the FIC.

Today, factories and workplaces in the United States operate under strict labor laws dictated by the government and unions, many of which were first set forth by the New York state legislature after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.

The Department of Labor at the national level and each state oversee standards that dictate fair wages, safe conditions and reasonable working hours.