The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire And Sweatshop Reform In American History

Explores the people and events connected with the 1911 fire in a New York City sewing factory that killed 146 people and led to reforms in legislation regarding workplace safety.

Describes the 1911 fire that destroyed the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village, the deaths of 146 workers in the fire, and the implications of the catastrophe for twentieth-century politics and labor relations.

Describes the 1911 fire that destroyed New York City's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and killed nearly one hundred and fifty workers, examining its causes and the reforms that came as a result of the tragedy.

Explore the important political and economic roles held by these "factory girls," during the Triangle Fire of 1911 as Triangle Fire presents sources that help you think critically about the demands industrialization placed upon urban working women, their fight to unionize, and the fire's significance in the greater scope of labor reform.

March 25, 2011, marks the centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in which 146 garment workers lost their lives. A work of history relevant for all those who continue the fight for workers' rights and safety, this edition of Leon Stein's classic account of the fire features a substantial new foreword by the labor journalist Michael Hirsch, as well as a new appendix listing all of the victims' names, for the first time, along with addresses at the time of their death and locations of their final resting places.

Provides comprehensive information on industry and immigration, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, its aftermath, and labor rights.

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City burst into flames. The factory was crowded. The doors were locked to ensure workers stay inside. One hundred forty-six people—mostly women—perished; it was one of the most lethal workplace fires in American history until September 11, 2001. But the story of the fire is not the story of one accidental moment in time. It is a story of immigration and hard work to make it in a new country, as Italians and Jews and others traveled to America to find a better life. It is the story of poor working conditions and greedy bosses, as garment workers discovered the endless sacrifices required to make ends meet. It is the story of unimaginable, but avoidable, disaster. And it the story of the unquenchable pride and activism of fearless immigrants and women who stood up to business, got America on their side, and finally changed working conditions for our entire nation, initiating radical new laws we take for granted today. With Flesh and Blood So Cheap, Albert Marrin has crafted a gripping, nuanced, and poignant account of one of America's defining tragedies.

Arguing that the sweatshop is as American as apple pie, Laura Hapke surveys over a century and a half of the language, verbal and pictorial, in which the sweatshop has been imagined and its stories told. Not seeking a formal definition of the sort that policymakers are concerned with, nor intending to provide a strict historical chronology, this unique book shows, rather, how the "real" sweatshop has become intertwined with the "invented" sweatshop of our national imagination, and how this mixture of rhetoric and myth has endowed American sweatshops with rich and complex cultural meaning. Hapke uncovers a wide variety of tales and images that writers, artists, social scientists, reformers, and workers themselves have told about "the shop." Adding an important perspective to historical and economic approaches, Sweatshop draws on sources from antebellum journalism, Progressive era surveys, modern movies, and anti-sweatshop websites. Illustrated chapters detail how the shop has been a facilitator of assimilation, a promoter of upward mobility, the epitome of exploitation, a site of ethnic memory, a venue for political protest, and an expression of twentieth-century managerial narratives. An important contribution to the real and imagined history of garment industry exploitation, this book provides a valuable new context for understanding contemporary sweatshops that now represent the worst expression of an unregulated global economy.

Newly arrived in New York City in 1910, Bella is desperate to send money home to her family in Italy, and becomes one of the hundreds of workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. But one fateful March night, a spark ignites some cloth in the factory, resulting in a fire that will become one of the worst workplace disasters in history.

In March 1911, a terrible fire swept through the Triangle factory, a garment shop in New York City. Crowds watched in horror as hundreds of trapped workers -- most of them women -- tried frantically to escape. This book explains the circumstances in the early 1900s that led to the tragic fire that killed 146 people: the lack of government regulation in the workplace, the greed of negligent employers, and the desperation of poor working people who had no choice but to labor in dangerous conditions. It explores the growth of industry and immigration in the United States in the late 1800s and looks at the role of unions and reformers. The book also details how, finally, public opinion forced state governments to legislate for change. Book jacket.