TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE Essays - Garment Industry

TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE Essays - Garment Industry TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE Mr.Cannavale 11/7/2014 8123 TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers. It is remembered as one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history, as the deaths were largely preventablemost of the victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors within the factory building. The tragedy brought widespread attention to the dangerous sweatshop conditions of factories, and led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of workers.Durring this tragic moment the owners were to blame. The neglected safety features at the time.The Triangle factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, was located in the top three floors of the Asch Building. It was a true sweatshop, employing young immigrant women who worked in a cramped space at lines of sewing machines. Nearly all the workers were teenaged girls who did not speak English, working 12 hours a day, every day. In 1911, there were four elevators with access to the factory floors, but only one was fully operational and the workers had to file down a long, narrow corridor in order to reach it. There were two stairways down to the street, but one was locked from the outside to prevent stealing and the other only opened inward. The fire escape was so narrow that it would have taken hours for all the workers to use it, even in the best of circumstances. The owners may have coused the fire and could have prevented this.The danger of fire in factories like the Triangle Shirtwaist was well- known, but high levels of corruption in both the garment industry and city government generally ensured that no useful precautions were taken to prevent fires. Blanck and Harris already had a suspicious history of factory fires. The Triangle factory was scorched twice in 1902, while their Diamond Waist Company factory burned twice, in 1907 and in 1910. It seems that Blanck and Harris deliberately torched their workplaces before business hours in order to collect on the large fireinsurance policies they purchased, a not uncommon practice in the early 20th century. While this was not the cause of the 1911 fire, it contributed to the tragedy, as Blanck and Harris refused to install sprinkler systems and take other safety measures in case they needed to burn down their shops again. The workers were to blame.The immagrants may have coused the fire to leave work early knowing it may couse deaths.The tight hallways were included to pevent steeling. This also may have been revenge on the owners for abusing them and also forceing them to work for many hours. If the workers to blame why was there so many of them going back for family.They would have warned there family members and tried to save them.If they were to blame they would loose family members and there job.The owners on the other hand had nothing to loose they can and will easly replace workers and the insurence will pay for the damage to the factory and more.For the family members of the victims that were killed the owners paid them money, but the owners were given ten times that amount by the insurance company. On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers. The owners were to blame but the owners blame the workers.Who do you think was to blame the owners or the harmless immagrante childern?Keep in mined there was no safty precautions in the building to provent this.The immagrents paid there lives for this and lost everythig,The owners lost nothing but as they call the lousy immagrents.