Document-Based Questions - Debra J. Housel, M.S. Ed. 2008

The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy
Incredible Disasters

American factories were growing fast in the 1900s. But business owners did not treat their workers well. They made them work for long hours and low wages. Often the workers faced hot, dirty, and dangerous conditions. Such workplaces were called sweatshops. Many women and children worked in these awful places. They did not dare to argue. If they didn’t work, they wouldn’t eat. Unlike today, there were no social programs to help them.

Then, in February 1910, the workers of 13 sweatshops in New York City went on strike. They wanted better conditions. One of the affected firms was the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. But the strike failed. The people were fired. New people were hired. At that time many new immigrants entered America each day. They wanted to work. They took any job offered to them.

Just a little over a year after the strike, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was the scene of a terrible tragedy. In those days, people worked six days a week. March 25, 1911, was a Saturday. It was also payday. Near quitting time paychecks were handed to the workers on the tenth floor. Most were teenage girls. Many were Italian and Jewish immigrants. They had taken the jobs of the fired strikers. They sewed shirts for low pay.

Suddenly a fire broke out. It quickly swept through the tenth floor. The one escape route could not let all the women pass. Very few got out. The only fire escape fell apart when the women stepped on to it! Some waited at the windows for the firemen. But their ladders did not reach high enough. Water from the hoses did not reach the top floors either. Many girls chose to leap to their deaths. They didn’t want to burn alive. A total of 146 died. The second exit could have saved lives. But it was nailed shut to keep workers from taking spools of thread.

News of the fire brought to light the poor conditions under which the girls had labored. People demanded that the factory’s owners be brought to trial. Eight months after the fire, a jury had to decide if the owners knew that the doors were locked at the time of the fire. The jurors decided they were not guilty. This upset many people. The dead girls’ families brought lawsuits against the men. The owners ended up paying $75 for each life lost.

But some good did come of this disaster. It brought about laws that required safer working conditions. That’s why today’s workers are 30 times less likely to die on the job than the workers of 1911.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy

Nellie Bly, who worked for New York World, was the first female reporter. She went undercover to find out the truth. Here are excerpts from the articles she wrote after working with the young women in a box-making factory:

I did not find the work difficult to learn, but rather disagreeable. The room was not ventilated*, and the paste and glue smells were very offensive. The piles of boxes made conversation impossible with all the girls except a beginner who sat by my side. She was very timid at first, but after I questioned her kindly she grew more communicative.

“Have you worked in the box factory long?” I asked.

“For 11 years, and I can’t say that it has ever given me a living. On an average I make $5 a week. I pay out $3.50 for board, and my wash bill is 75 cents. Can anyone expect a woman to dress on what remains?”

“What do you get paid for boxes?”

“I get 50 cents a hundred for one-pound candy boxes, and 40 cents a hundred for half-pound boxes.”

“What work do you do on a box for that pay?”

“Everything. I get the pasteboard cut in squares the same as you did. I first ’set up’ the lids, then I ’mold in’ the bottoms. This forms a box. Next I do the ’trimming,’ which is putting the gilt edge around the box lid. ’Cover striping’ (covering the edge of the lid) is next, and then comes the ’top label,’ which finishes the lid. Then I paper the box, do the ’bottom labeling,’ and then put in two or four laces (lace paper) on the inside as ordered. Thus you see one box passes through my hands eight times before it is finished. I have to work very hard and without ceasing to be able to make two hundred boxes a day, which earns me $1. It is not enough pay. You see I handle two hundred boxes sixteen hundred times for $1. Cheap labor, isn’t it?”

One girl who worked on the floor below me said they were not allowed to tell what they earned. However, she had been working here five years, and she did not average more than $5 a week.

The factory itself was a totally unfit place for women. The rooms were small and there was no ventilation. In case of fire there was practically no escape.

*causes air to enter and move about freely in a room or building

Bly, Nellie, 1887. “Experience in the Role of a New York Shop-girl Making Paper Boxes.” http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html

The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy

1. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory happened in

a. February 1910.

b. March 1910.

c. March 1911.

d. March 1914.

2. Why did the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory strike fail?

a. The owners set a fire that burned down the factory.

b. A fire killed most of the strikers.

c. The strikers didn’t dare to leave their jobs for more than two days.

d. New immigrants took the jobs from which the strikers had walked away.

3. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory’s second exit was locked because the owners

a. wanted to protect the workers from kidnappers.

b. believed that the workers might take home thread.

c. thought that the workers were leaving work early.

d. thought that the workers might steal bolts of fabric.

4. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory helped to bring about needed reforms. True or False? Explain.

5. Name the two things that workers in the box-making factory had in common with the workers in Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

6. Should the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory have been found guilty of manslaughter (accidental murder)? Why or why not?