Misfortunate Monday: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

     Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of Nations Made Fun! I'll be your host, Mr. Nations, your tour guide to this massive world we all call home! Today we'll be talking about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the fire that called all fire safety laws into question. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's dive straight into it!

     On March 11th, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers inside. It is remembered as one of the most infamous accidents in American industrial history because most of the workers died from neglected safety features. 

     The working conditions of the factory were unsafe at best, employing hundreds of teenage girls to work on lines of sewing machines. Most could not speak English and worked twelve-hour days. There were four elevators, but only one was fully operational and the workers had to file down a long narrow corridor to reach it. There were two stairways down to the street, but one was locked and the other only opened inward. The fire escape was too narrow, so it would have taken ages for all the workers to safely use it.

     The fire started in a rag bin. The manager at the time tried to use the provided fire hose, but it proved ineffective because the hose was rotted and the valve rusted shut. Workers rushed to the elevators, but only twelve women could be taken at a time. The manager made four trips before the elevator stopped working. The stairs were locked, meaning that many women had to suffer at the bottom of a stairwell. Women jumped out of windows to attempt to escape but met an end at the hands of the sidewalk.

     The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burning:

     

     Sources: https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/triangle-shirtwaist-fire