The 100th anniversary of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory that occurred on March 25, 1911External prompted many remembrances.

The Triangle Waist Company was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris and manufactured shirtwaists. Most of the company’s employees were young, immigrant women; and like many manufacturing concerns of the day, working conditions were not ideal and the space was cramped.

When the Shirtwaist fire broke out on the 8th floor, many workers found exiting their floor, as well as the building itself, almost impossible. Many doors were locked, some were impassable because they were already blocked by the fire itself, and the few exits that were available quickly became impassable once the fire spread. To make matters worse, when the fire department arrived, they had a difficult time rescuing people because their ladders couldn’t reach high enough. As a result, 146 people, mostly women, died of burns, asphyxiation, or blunt impact from jumping.

After the fire there were two efforts to investigate factory safety and propose new regulations – the Committee on Safety and the New York Factory Investigating Commission. Eventually, the state of New York updated labor laws, passed new laws mandating better building access and egress, updated fireproofing requirements, and other reforms. While the inadequate safety preparations and poor working conditions of this particular factory were exposed, the fire galvanized workers and others concerned about working conditions in factories.

Prior to the Shirtwaist Factory fire, especially during the Progressive Era, the standards and regulations that did exist for workplace safety originated with state and local governments – New York, California, Ohio, and Wisconsin were particularly active in creating safety standards. While most of the attention was devoted to mines and railroads due to the dangerous nature of the work, factories did not go unnoticed.

The publicity surrounding the fire pushed workplace safety issues onto the national stage. In 1913 the National Safety Council External, a non-profit organization dedicated to safety issues, was formed. That same year at the meeting of the Second Safety Council, there was a session on fire prevention where they addressed progress in fire suppression techniques, the importance of fire exits, and how both employees and employers needed to be involved in workplace fire safety. Also in 1913, the President signed Public Law 426-62 (ch. 141, §1, 37 Stat. 736) which created the Department of Labor. Its mission was to:

“foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.”

Decades years later a plaque was affixed to a building to note the event, but other than that it was not noted physically. However, in 2012, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, held a competition to design a permanent memorial. Their work will culminate on October 11, 2023 when a memorial will be dedicated to the tragedy at the corner of Washington Place and Green St near Washington Square at the site of the fire. It will rise nine stories and be in the languages of those who worked and died - English, Yiddish and Italian - and feature the names of those that died.