Resources
What are the best resources about the Triangle fire, the historical texts, literature, music, art, and performances available? Use the links found below to access them. Andi Sosin updates this page about the Triangle Fire and related topics. Please contact her or access the Triangle Open Archive (for online capture of documents, photos, audio or video) to submit artifacts and share resources; we’ll spread the word!
Resources for All
Explore all aspects of the historical record, cultural impact, and artistic response to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Recent Items
- The Workers’ Memorial Quilts: Triangle Factory Fire Quilt & Bangladesh Quilt: These quilts honor garment workers who died in twin workplace disasters that bookended the past century: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 and the Tazreen fire and Rana Plaza collapse of 2012 and 2013 in Bangladesh. Learn more here: workermemorialquilts.org
- Fiery Girls: A Novel of the 1911 Triangle Waist Company Fire by Heather Wardell.
- Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Edited by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti, Published by New Village Press
- High school student Maegan Smarkusky created a research project website about the history of the Triangle Factory fire and its impact on labor law and workplace safety.
- Find it with Erin Essex Podcast : The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire – In order of appearance: LuLu LoLo performance artist, playwright/actor, excerpt from her play Soliloquy for a Seamstress: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire as William Gunn Shepherd, eyewitness reporter at scene of the Triangle Factory fire; and Ruth Sergel, artist and agitator, CHALK, author of See You in the Streets.
- NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò: Remember the Triangle Fire: Performance, Screening, and Presentation – Introduction: Stefano Alberti, Director; Organized by Valeria Giovanna Castelli in partnership with Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition; LuLu LoLo (Pascale) (performance of an excerpt from her one person play ‘Soliloquy for a Seamstress: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire’; and Mary Anne Trasciatti, chair Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition. Co-sponsored with Humanities New York, Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Italian American Writers Association, National Organization of Italian American Women, NYU Center for Humanities, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute.
Key Resources
- The Kheel Center at Cornell University’s ILR School has updated and revised the definitive Triangle research and information website.
- Triangle: The Fire that Changed America by David von Drehle
- Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Topics in Chronicling America at the Library of Congress
- 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 New York City Triangle Factory Fire by Leigh Benin, Rob Linné, Adrienne Sosin and Joel Sosinsky. ARCADIA Images of America.
- See You in the Streets: Art, Action, and Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire by Ruth Sergel, founder of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
Careers
- Fire science education resources from FireScience.org.
Essays, Articles, & Pamphlets
- Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Edited by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti, Published by New Village Press
- Hesperian has released an instructive pamphlet, Fighting Factory Fires: 100 years after the Triangle Fire.
- Di Fayer Korbunes and Mameniu: Yiddish Triangle Fire Ballads by Eve Sicular. See the Music section below for song lyrics and audio files of the songs, as performed by Metropolitan Klezmer at Cooper Union Centennial, March 25, 2011.
- Chalking Back Through Time: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire by Elissa Sampson.
- The Progressive Jewish Alliance handout for the Triangle Fire Centennial Shabbat includes a Triangle fire timeline, references to the tenets of Jewish ethics that support workers’ rights, excerpts from poetry and speeches that expressed grief following the fire, current issues regarding sweatshop disasters in the US and other nations, and how to combat them through purchasing fair trade garments and green practices.
- Don’t Mourn, Organize is a booklet of statements by 34 leaders in worker safety and health from government; labor; academia; and community-based public health and immigrant organizations on what the Triangle shirtwaist fire has to teach us today, available from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH).
- The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: One Hundred Years After – NYU’s Wagner Archives Exhibit is at LaborArts.
- The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: The Legal Legacy by Frances Murray and Lisa Bohannon for the Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York.
Film, Video, & Audio
- The Fire of a Movement from the PBS series ‘The Future of America’s Past.’
- The Triangle Shirtwaist Connection by Michelle Fecteau on THE MOTH, True Stories Told Live. Recorded September 14, 2015. Duration 7 min 13 sec.
- Triangle: Remembering the Fire (HBO Documentary Films, 2011). HBO Documentary Films has established a resources page that links to important sites (OSHA, the International Labor Rights Forum and others).
- Triangle Fire (PBS American Experience, 2011).
- Ric Burns’ PBS Documentary New York (DVD, 1999). Episode 4 describes the Triangle fire.
- You May Call Her Madam Secretary is a documentary about Frances Perkins (US Secretary of Labor under FDR), who witnessed the fire and led reform efforts thereafter.
- Pane Amaro (Bitter Bread): The Italian American Journey from Despised Immigrants to Honored Citizens. (DVD, 2009).
- Youtube.com contains many short films related to the Triangle Fire. Thanks to Jane Fazio-Villeda for the link to this clip of a History Channel interview of Rose Freedman, the last Triangle fire survivor.
- God Rock Radio’s program on the causes and effects of the Triangle Fire contains well chosen musical selections and illuminating discussion. It is a free download from the Internet Archive and Facebook.
- With These Hands (ILGWU Documentary, 1950) Transfer Note: Scanned from a 16mm print held by the Library of Congress. Running Time: 51 minutes. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1950 and received a Freedoms Foundation award the same year.
- “Building Bridges” on WBAI FM Radio presented a 55 minute audio docudrama, tapestry of sounds and re-enactment of voices from the PBS American Experience special intermingled with poetry, songs and voices of scholar/activists about the legacy of Triangle today on March 8, 2011 called Out of the Flames, From The Ashes: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire & Its Legacy.
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 the “Triangle Waist Company” and/or “Triangle Fire;” request All Results Since 1851. Articles in the Public Domain are free.
History
- 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.
- Bibliography – a comprehensive list of high level history compiled by the Jewish Labor Committee
Literature
- The Girl in the Triangle by Joyana Peters
- Fiery Girls: A Novel of the 1911 Triangle Waist Company Fire by Heather Wardell
- Triangle: A Novel by Katharine Weber
- Dreamland by Kevin Baker
- Rivington Street by Meredith Tax
- Come With Me To Babylon by Paul M. Levitt. Click here for an excerpt compliments of the author: BABYLON
- Dorothy at the scene of the Triangle fire, an excerpt from Dorothy, This Side of the Rainbow by Vincent Begley
- Edge of the Triangle by Duane H. Cook
- They Were Legal: Balzac Y Lopez: The History of an Hispanic Family New York 1901-1960 by Diane Fortuna
Music
- Professor Edvige Giunta of New Jersey City University interviewed Italian singer Francesca Incudine about her song, “No Name,” a mourning dirge about the 24 Sicilian immigrant garment workers, who died in the Triangle Fire in New York City on March 25, 1911. Listen to “No Name” here. Read the song’s lyrics here.
- This is a 1970s song by the Movimento Femminista Romano that is considered to refer to the Triangle fire though it does not specifically mention “Triangle.”
- Explanations of the relationship between the Italian Feminist movement, International Women’s Day and the Triangle Fire from two Italian sources: generAzioni.net and nuovAtlantide.org
- The Triangle Fire and Bread & Roses, in Yiddish with French & English subtitles.
- Bruce Liles’ song, Sew, is on YouTube.
- Annie Lanzillotto’s songs: GIRLS, GIRLS, WHERE DID YOU WORK LAST NIGHT and as sung at the Centennial, Ballad for Joe Zito.
- Triangle Fire Song Words and Triangle Fire Song Music by Ross Altman. ©2011 Grey Goose Music (BMI).
- Triangle Factory Fire by Misner & Smith.
- Ballad of the Triangle Fire by Ruth Rubin.
Performance
- Labor of Love – a play with music by Vincent Cuccina
- Triangle – a puppet play with music by Patrick Keppel & Bradley Kemp
- Triangle: From the Fire – an oratorio & dance/theater composition by Elizabeth Swados & Cecilia Rubino
- Soliloquy For A Seamstress: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire written & performed by LuLu LoLo
- Birds on Fire by Barbara Kahn, as interviewed by nytheater.com (March 6, 2011)
Poetry
- Defying Extinction by Amy Barone, Muddy River Poetry Review #22, edited by Zvi A. Sesling
- ONCE I WAS TOLD THE AIR WAS NOT FOR BREATHING by Paola Corso
- The Triangle Fire in The Persistence of Memory by Mary Fell
- Fragments from the Fire poetry by Chris Llewellyn
- Twins a poem by Will MacAdams
- Shirt a poem by Robert Pinsky
- Walking Through the River of Fire: 100 Years of Triangle Fire Poetry edited by Julia Stein with an introduction by Jack Hirschman
- Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, New York City, March 25, 1911 by Diana Lischer-Goodband, copyright 1998. See the Comments on this page below.
- rituals of spring (for the 78th anniversary of the shirtwaist factory fire) by Safiya Henderson-Holmes
- THE FIRE by Lillian Pollak, from The Sweetest Dream: Love, Lies, Assassination & Hope, A novel of the Thirties. (pp.95-98). Read by the author at the Clara Lemlich Awards Ceremony, New York City, March 21, 2011.
Reader Recommendations
- The New York Public Library has selected items from its extensive collection of Triangle fire related materials, in a resource list with links for access.
- A Triangle Fire bibliography submitted by Julia Stein through Chicago Labor and Arts.
- Sweatshop Cinderella – a documentary film by Suzanne Wasserman.
Visual Arts
- The Workers’ Memorial Quilts: Triangle Factory Fire Quilt & Bangladesh Quilt: These quilts honor garment workers who died in twin workplace disasters that bookended the past century: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 and the Tazreen fire and Rana Plaza collapse of 2012 and 2013 in Bangladesh. Learn more here: workermemorialquilts.org
- A Triangle remembrance logo for public use under Creative Commons, offered by Bradley Kemp for the puppet opera Triangle.
- Susan Harris has created a project that embroiders every name on antique shirtwaists.
For Educators
Teaching about the Triangle fire and related topics? Find selected educational resources, including lesson plans and online materials, as well as Triangle fire learning projects contributed by teachers and students.
Educational Websites & Lesson Plans
- New American History and Field Studio created a Triangle Shirtwaist Fire companion lesson plan for the “The Fire of a Movement” episode of the PBS series “The Future of America’s Past.”
- The Jewish Women’s Archive Lesson Plan: What Will It Cost Me to Work for You? Jews and the Labor Movement: Immigrant Life on the Lower East Side, the Strike of 1909, and Garment Workers in Peril Yesterday and Today by Judith Sandman, 2013 Twersky Award winner, designed for Jewish students in grades 6-8.
- Triangle UFT Resource Materials distributed in 2013 by the United Federation of Teachers, the Teachers Center and Workers United.
- Bread & Roses has published a new curriculum guide:The Great Strike, Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912. Small Planet Communications, Inc., in partnership with the Lawrence History Center, has developed a comprehensive curriculum for teachers and students on the historic textile strike that took place in Lawrence in 1912. For copies and information, contact Lisa Lyons at Small Planet Communications, lisa@smplanet.com, 978-794-2201 ext. 2003.
- The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), a group of occupational safety, health and environmental professionals offers resources regarding safety, including Napo, an animated character who educates about safety in the workplace.
- The New York Times Learning Network. 100 Years Later: Examining the Impact of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, by Shannon Doyne, Holly Epstein Ojalvo and Katherine Schulten, March 25, 2011.
- 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 to develop awareness of labor conditions and 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. The link to the answer key is EconEd It Could Happen Today Worksheet AnswerKey.
- The Triangle Fire: A Curriculum Guide. Washington Post Newspapers in Education. Type “Triangle Fire” in the Search bar. Interview with David Von Drehle with an activity about how important cutters were to the process of making shirtwaists. Von Drehle also appears on C-SPAN Booknotes.
- 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.
Books for Children & Young Adults
- The Girl in the Triangle by Joyana Peters
- Fiery Girls: A Novel of the 1911 Triangle Waist Company Fire by Heather Wardell
- Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909 by Michelle Markel (2013) and Brave Girl Teacher’s Guide
- 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)
- Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy by Al Marrin (2011)
- Marching to a Different Drummer: Unrecognized Heroes of American History by Robin Kadison Berson (1994)
- A Life of Her Own by Joan G. Hauser (2014)
Student Presentations & Projects
Many schools and teachers have engaged their students with inquiry learning projects about the Triangle fire. Presented here are some of the projects submitted to the Coalition, including videos, audio plays, photos of artifacts, and written documents.
- High school student Maegan Smarkusky created a research project website about the history of the Triangle Factory fire and its impact on labor law and workplace safety.
- Professor Edvige Giunta teaches a course about the Triangle Fire at New Jersey City University. During the Spring 2020 semester her students Glenroy Clarke and Jeniffer Torres powerfully used their avatars to compose a ten minute video that describes and illustrates immigrant living and working conditions in the early 1900s. Watch it here. Find Professor Giunta’s course’s Facebook group, ‘The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in the Classroom’ here.
- Kim Schiller’s school District published an article about her students’ experiences in studying the Triangle Fire.
- Caroline Roswell created a website that records her class study about the Triangle Fire.
- A wiki developed by CUNY students: The Peopling of New York City
- Harris Cohen, a student at Hunter College Elementary and High School in New York City entered his website project about the Triangle Fire and taking a stand for Workers’ Rights in the 2017 National History Day competition. While he unfortunately did not make it to NHD, he says “I had a very meaningful experience researching the Triangle fire. If you would like to look at my website the link is here.” Take a look!
- Congratulations to the students at Ramon Cortines High School in Los Angeles who presented an oratorio they composed, titled, “Woman at the Window: The Triangle Factory Fire,” on February 4th and 5th, 2016. The students developed their oratorio through the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s award-winning “Voices Within” artists-in-residence program, designed to foster collaboration among students as they create and perform their own original choral works under the guidance of professional teaching artists. According to a review of the performance, “That the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was chosen as the subject of an oratorio, an event about which many of those the students’ age know nothing about, indicates considerable seriousness and is a welcome sign of an interest in grappling with critical historical questions.”
- Students at Northwood High School, Huntington Beach CA, remember the Triangle Fire. We commend them! “Northwood High School’s production of “The Triangle Factory Fire Project” unfolds a dark tale of social injustices, glaring safety issues in the Triangle Factory workplace and the desperate rally of women to get their voices heard. The play does not hold any character above the rest – every death matters, and likewise, every character matters.” -Claire Alkire. Read more about Northwood High School’s production here.
- Congratulations to Molly Brambil, Megan Healy and Caitlin Yabroudy from Huntington Union Free School District on earning 1st place in New York State in the 2013 National History Day Competition senior website category for their outstanding historical work and high tech presentation of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and its impact on workers’ rights. They also earned the Best Entry on Labor History as designated by the American Labor Studies Center. The trio will next represent Huntington and New York State at the national-level competition to be held on the College Park campus of the University of Maryland in June.
- Students from J. Taylor Finley Middle School in Huntington, NY traveled to Manhattan to participate in the the 101st commemoration of the Triangle Factory Fire. In order to qualify for the trip, students wrote essays explaining the events that preceded the fire and the impact the tragedy had on labor in America.
- Hope High School in Providence, Rhode Island produced a costume play that is headed to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.
- Juan Morel Campus Schools participated in the Centennial. Here is a newsletter written by the students.
- Maribeth Whitehouse, a teacher at IS 190, Bronx, NY sent photos from an 8th grade class project that linked the Triangle fire to the HappyLand fire of March 25, 1990. She says “Although there are obvious differences between the two events, there are many similarities like building code violations, the impact on immigrant populations and the huge loss of life (especially young people).” Here is a photo of a student’s project. Maribeth’s students have just created a new audio play, in which they conduct a rally as if it were 1909. Whitehouse Students imagine a 1909 Worker’s rally. Maribeth and her students came to the Centennial ceremony on March 25, 2011.
Video Projects
Teacher Caroline Roswell of PS 229 Queens led her students in an inquiry project that took them to the Evergreens Cemetery, where they presented their reports and read garment workers’ contemporaneous accounts of the Triangle fire at the unveiling of a memorial to the formerly unidentified and now known victims, at the Longman Memorial, on April 5, 2011. Thanks to TruAbilities that helped these students make a great platform, play, and ideas.