Next Up in Fiber Nation: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Part 2

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire lasted fewer than 30 minutes and killed 146 people, most of them young women. The disaster would lead to sweeping labor reforms and workplace safety regulations that we still have today. It would transform Democrats into a working-class, progressive party. And it would, more than 20 years down the road, help elect Franklin D. Roosevelt president, paving the way for the New Deal.

You can find Part 1 of this special, two-part episode here: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Part 1

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The labor strike during the previous year had ended in victory for New York’s garment workers. But Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, had won something as well: notoriety. They had been the most vocally anti-union of all factory owners and the most vicious in response to the strike.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Blanck and Harris — Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the Triangle Factory owners. During the fire, Harris would prove to be an unlikely hero.

During the walk-out, The Forward, a Yiddish newspaper, had covered the Triangle in detail, especially the owners’ violence toward their own employees. “With blood this name will be written in the history of American workers,” it wrote. The paper was right, but for the wrong reason.

Garment Workers triangle factory — Garment workers at their sewing machines. The piles of lawn fabric were more flammable than paper.

The fire started on the 8^th floor of the building around 4:41 pm, as workers were preparing to leave. A dropped cigarette or match is the most likely culprit. Within minutes the entire floor was in flames, and the fire quickly spread to the 9^th and 10^th floors. While most of the workers on the 8^th and 10^th floors managed to escape, the seamstresses on the 9^th floor were trapped almost immediately. By 4:51—just 10 minutes after the fire started—women began jumping from the windows to the street 100 feet below.

collapsed fire escape of triangle factory — The only fire escape collapsed under the weight of fleeing workers, sending many to their death.

There were two stairwells the workers could have used to escape, but one was kept locked. (Like many owners, Blanck and Harris insisted on searching workers when they left the building, to prevent theft.) This locked door became key evidence when Blank and Harris were put on trial for manslaughter.

interior of triangle factory — The 9th floor after the fire. You can see the remains of sewing machines in the rubble at the bottom of the photo.

That same locked door became a symbol of unsafe factory conditions that killed thousands of workers every year across the US. Listen to the episode to hear how savvy politicians took up workers’ rights as a political cause, one that would lead to the White House and the New Deal more than 20 years later.