The Triangle Waist Company was located one block east of Washington Square Park. There were over 500 employees – most were young women, most were recent immigrants. March 25, 1911 a fire broke out on the 8th floor. The workers ran to the fire escape. It collapsed, dropping them to their death. On the 9th floor a critical exit was locked. People on the street watched as the workers began to jump out the windows. Fire trucks arrived but their ladders only reached the 6th floor. The elevators ran as long as they could, workers pressed into the cars; some tumbled down the elevator shaft.

In the end 146 people died. There was a trial but the owners, long known for their anti-union activities, got off. The fire became a rallying cry for the international labor movement. Many of our fire safety laws were created in response to this tragic event.

We remember because we are still fighting for social justice for all.

Andi Sosin has been compiling information about the Triangle Fire and related topics now available in print and online. Please contact her to share more resources; we’ll spread the word!

Here are the key books and website that chronicle the fire & its aftermath:

• Triangle: The Fire that Changed America by David von Drehle
• The Triangle Fire by Leon Stein
• The Triangle Fire, the Protocols of Peace, and Industrial Democracy in Progressive Era New York by Richard Greenwald
• The Kheel Center at Cornell University online exhibit

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Films:

• Ric Burns’ PBS Documentary New York (DVD, 1999). Episode 4 dramatically describes the Triangle fire.
• Pane Amaro (Bitter Bread): The Italian American Journey from Despised Immigrants to Honored Citizens. (DVD, 2009).
  
• The Triangle Fire: Documentary A forthcoming documentary on the fire by Roy Campolongo.
• Sweatshop Cinderella, a documentary about writer Anzia Yezierska by Suzanne Wasserman of the CUNY Gotham Center.

• Youtube contains a number of short films about the Triangle Fire. Thanks to Jane Fazio-Villeda for the recommendation of this clip containing an interview with Rose Freedman the last survivor of the Triangle Fire, from the History Channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTLAd0ChY1U

Lesson plans:

• Learning Conversations With History: The Triangle Fire
  By Anne Campbell And Irene Rabinowitz.  The UFT Teacher Center Professional Development Program. Special Edition. Vol 17. 2005–06. pp. 19-24. (5 MB pdf download; worth the wait)
• Fire in the Sky:The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Causes and Consequences by Christopher Czajka, online at the National Teacher Training Institute Channel 13 PBS keys to New York (Episode 4 of the Ric Burns Documentary) with media literacy activities that help teachers develop awareness of conditions facing labor in the early part of the 20th century, as well as the causes and consequences of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
• Worker Safety – The Triangle Fire Legacy
  By Patricia Bonner. Council for Economic Education: An EconEdLink Online lesson. Includes worksheet activities and website resources about Triangle as well as more recent worker tragedies. Below is link to an answer key that describes the knowledge developed in this lesson.
  EconEd It Could Happen Today Worksheet AnswerKey
• The Triangle Fire: A Curriculum Guide. Washington Post Newspapers in Education. Includes an interview with David Von Drehle and an activity to develop sensitivity about how important cutters were to the process of making shirtwaists (a 5MB pdf; worth the wait). An additional interview with Von Drehle on C-SPAN Booknotes in 2003 http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/177888-1
• Social Science Docket. The New York and New Jersey State Councils for the Social Studies. Vol. 4. No.1. Winter/Spring 2004. Theme: Work and Workers in New Jersey and New York.
• The Triangle Fire: From Industrialism to Progressivism. By Joanne Reitano, La Guardia Community College CUNY; The American Social History Project: An Investigating US History module designed for use in the introductory college U.S. history survey course.

Historical Documents:

• The 1912 report of the Red Cross Emergency Relief Committee
• Landmark designation document of the Brown/Asch Building
• Newspaper reports: The New York Times Archive Online. Search for “Triangle Waist Company” and/or “Triangle Fire;” request All Results Since 1851. Articles in the Public Domain are free.

Literature:

• Triangle: A Novel by Katharine Weber
• Fragments from the Fire poetry by Chris Llewellyn
• Twins a poem by Will MacAdams
• Shirt a poem by Robert Pinsky

Books for Adults:

• Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working Class Politics in the United States, 1900 – 1965 by Annelise Orleck.
• We Were There: The Story of Working Women in America by Barbara Mayer Wertheimer. 1977. out of print but available through libraries.

Books for Children & Young Adults:
(thank you to Cynthia Anne McLeod for starting this list!)

• Uprising by Margaret P. Haddix (2007)
• Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch (2002)
• Fire!: The Beginnings of the Labor Movement by Barbara Goldin (1992)
• Factory Girl by Barbara Greenwood (2007)
• Hear My Sorrow: The Diary of Angela Denoto, a Shirtwaist Worker by Deborah Hopkinson (2004)
• The locket: Surviving the Triangle Shirtwaist fire by Suzanne Lieurance (2008)
• Fire at the Triangle Factory by Holly Littlefield (1996)
• The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (Graphic Library) by Jessica Gunderson (2006)

Essays & Articles:

• Chalking Back Through Time: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire by Elissa Sampson
• Choosing Not to Forget What Is Painful to Recall by Clyde Haberman in the New York Times, March 25, 2010

Art:

• Susan Harris has created a project that embroiders every name on antique shirtwaists.

[View with PicLens]

 

Performance:  The artists listed here will perform portions of their works in the showcase at Judson Church on March 25, 2010.

• Labor of Love – a play with music by Vincent Cuccina
• Triangle – a puppet opera by Patrick Keppel & Bradley Kemp
• Triangle: From the Fire – an oratorio & dance/theater piece by Elizabeth Swados & Cecilia Rubino
• Soliloquy For A Seamstress: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire written & performed by LuLu LoLo

Music:

Andi Sosin & Eve Sicular have been digging up period music written in response to the fire:

Ruth Rubin’s Ballad of the Triangle Fire

Courtesy of the Library of Congress Die Fire Korbunes