posted March 22, 2011 08:50 AM            

For those who might not have read about this tragedy, a short cap [Please do click on the links] and some pics.

The building's east side, with 40 bodies on the sidewalk. Two of the victims were found alive an hour after the photo was taken.

....The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, who either died from the fire or jumped to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent immigrant Jewish women aged sixteen to twenty-three. Many of the workers could not escape the burning building because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. People jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers...

The factory was located in the Asch Building, at 29 Washington Place, now known as the Brown Building, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.

There are 2 filmed documentaries one called Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags

and a new one- Daphne Pinkerson, Director of HBO's "Triangle: Remembering The Fire"

also YouTube Play list of shorts

Firefighter Ray Ott imagined his experience arriving at the scene on 9/11 similar to his grandfather’s, one of the first responders at Triangle -- helpless as fire ladders couldn’t reach the ninth floor, as the fire escape collapsed and nets failed.

Until 9/11, it was the most devastating workplace disaster in New York history.

18 minutes. 146 lives

quote:

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Consequences
The company's owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, who survived the fire by fleeing to the building's roof when the fire began, were indicted on charges of first and second degree manslaughter in mid-April; the pair's trial began on December 4, 1911.[32] Max Steuer, counsel for the defendants, managed to destroy the credibility of one of the survivors, Kate Alterman, by asking her to repeat her testimony a number of times — which she did without altering key phrases. Steuer argued to the jury that Alterman and possibly other witnesses had memorized their statements, and might even have been told what to say by the prosecutors. The defense also stressed that the prosecution had failed to prove that the owners knew the exit doors were locked at the time in question. The jury acquitted the two men, but they lost a subsequent civil suit in 1913 in which plaintiffs won compensation in the amount of $75 per deceased victim. The insurance company paid Blanck and Harris about $60,000 more than the reported losses, or about $400 per casualty. In 1913, Blanck was once again arrested for locking the door in his factory during working hours. He was fined $20.

...Schneiderman, a prominent socialist and union activist, gave a speech at the memorial meeting held in the Metropolitan Opera House on April 2, 1911, to an audience largely made up of the members of the Women's Trade Union League. She used the fire as an argument for factory workers to organize and not rely on the "good people of the public....We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us....I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement."

Others in the community, and in particular in the ILGWU,[35] drew a different lesson from events. The New York State Legislature created its New York State Factory Investigating Committee to "investigate factory conditions in this and other cities and to report remedial measures of legislation to prevent hazard or loss of life among employees through fire, unsanitary conditions, and occupational diseases." New York City's Fire Chief John Kenlon told the investigators that his department had identified more than 200 factories where conditions made a fire like that at the Triangle Factory possible. The State Committee's 1915 report helped modernize the state's labor laws. It made New York State "one of the most progressive states in terms of labor reform." As a result of the fire, the American Society of Safety Engineers was founded in New York City on October 14, 1911.

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the fact that in the last 40 years, the percentage of American clothing made in America has plummeted from 95 to 5. Five percent!

The Garment Industry was once the heart and soul of NYC. in 1910, 70% of the nation's women's clothing and 40% of the men's was produced in the City