Comparative Analysis of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
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by Jaq Green
I We should’ve called it the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire/Fall/Asphyxiation. Of the 146 dead workers, only about 50 actually burned. A bunch of them jumped. Went right through the firemen’s arms, through the nets, through the sidewalk. We have pictures of their jigsaw-puzzle guts splattered in teenager-sized craters across the factory’s basement floor. It took them weeks to clean up all the organs. It took 18 minutes for all the dead to die. II You know they locked the doors? Immigrants always steal. Especially Italians. Especially Jews. Always squirreling scraps of lace away to sew on their own shirtwaists later. And the foremen wanted to make sure no one was sneaking off to talk about unions. So they locked the doors to the stairwells for nine hours a day, six days a week. At the end they paid you seven dollars. And you couldn’t go out to piss or stretch or smoke. So you smoke inside. Strike a match when the foreman’s back is turned. Exhale smoke through your lapel. But that isn’t the worst part. The worst part is the scrap bins haven’t been emptied in two months. III Let’s talk about shirtwaists. A shirtwaist is a button-down blouse. If you’re in 1911 New York, your shirtwaist is pleated, trimmed with lace, cut from silk. Once it’s cut, Sara and the other little uns run the pieces up to the tenth floor, and the older girls sew until they pass out from the heat or the needles sink through their fingers. The scraps go in these baskets. Let’s talk about stairs. You can go up to ten or down to eight if someone sends you to fetch something, but you’ll have to ask the foreman to let you through. He’s the only one with a key. We won’t talk about elevators. The elevator operator won’t even look at you. IV We could talk about fire escapes. But this one barely lasted three minutes. It was rusted, desperately clinging to the building, swaying dangerously even before the fire broke out. The only reason I mention it is because when it collapsed, there were still 20 people climbing down. V March 25, 1911 was an especially shitty day to be an owner of the Triangle Waist Company because they both brought their kids to work. It’s okay, though. A bookkeeper on the eighth floor called to tell the tenth floor about the sudden flames, and the owners escaped with their families by climbing to the roof in the few breathless moments before the stair was too jammed to move in any direction. About a dozen people survived that way. Later, they did have to deal with the manslaughter allegations. But that ended up okay, too. The best lawyer in New York City got them acquitted of all criminal charges. VI It’s Kate’s fault they went free. Kate Alterman, 17, ninth floor cutter. She didn’t speak English too good. The defense made her repeat her testimony three times. “Kate,” said the best lawyer in New York City, “you forgot to talk about Margaret’s dress smoking.” “Oh, right,” she said. “I always leave that part out.” The all-male, non-immigrant jury, convinced Kate’s carefully rehearsed speech meant she was lying, slapped the owners with a fine. It was $60,000 less than they got from the insurance payout. VII But what about the elevator? I’m glad you asked. There were two, actually. One of the operators managed three trips before the rails buckled in the heat. The other fell when girls from the eighth floor pried the shaft doors open and tried to slide down the cable. Some of them even made it. VIII Now, you may be thinking, why didn’t the foreman just unlock the stairwell doors? Good question. He’d already left. Anything else? IX Oh, right. The ninth floor. No one told the ninth floor because the ninth floor didn’t have a phone. And there were no alarms. So by the time they saw the fire they were burning. Or, well, you know. Asphyxiating. Silk makes a lot of smoke. I’ve heard the smell of burning shirtwaist is almost as revolting as the smell of burning immigrant. X OSHA has an article about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. They mention that the firemen’s ladders only reached the seventh floor. They mention scant water buckets, half full. They mention that the safety nets “ripped like paper.” They quote the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. “We’ve got to turn this into some kind of victory, some kind of constructive action.” They tell us that New York’s new workplace safety standards “set... an example for the rest of the country.” XI The OSHA report does not mention that Sara Maltese was 14 years old. It does not mention Sara Maltese at all. XII I’m rereading a Wall Street Journal report on the collapse of the Baltimore Key Bridge. March 26, 2024. It’s been 113 years and one day. This time, there were only six casualties. The ship radioed ahead and cops cleared out the traffic. No one told the construction workers. XIII Miguel Luna. Dorlian Cabrera. Alejandro Hernández Fuentes. Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval. José Maynor Lopez. Carlos, no full name released. They only found two of the bodies. Guatemalens, belted into a red pickup truck. XIV Kate said, “I saw her bending down on her knees, and her hair was loose, and the trail of her dress was a little far from her, and then a big smoke came and I couldn't see I just know it was Margaret, and I said, ‘Margaret,’ and she didn't reply.” XV The question is not, could we have prevented the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire? Obviously, we could have. Or at least, we could have prevented it from becoming the worst US workplace disaster until September 11, 2001. The question also isn't, how far has America come? Far, obviously. We no longer let kids work in sweatshops. Not on US soil, anyway. Just department stores. And farms. And, occasionally, slaughterhouses. XVI The question is, how many more of us are going to die? Of overwork. Of underpay. Of the foreman locking the doors so he can go through our purses before we leave. The answer is, more. More and more and more and more and more. Until someone decides to call the blue-collar workers and tell them to get off the bridge. Bibliography Jaq Green is a writer based in New England. |