Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Innocents Ablaze




March 25, 1911 was an early Spring Saturday. Kate Leone, age 14 rose early in the fourth floor apartment she shared with the rest of her family. Careful not to wake her little brothers as she got dressed, she double checked that she had her lunch as she closed the apartment door behind her. Walking down the stairs Kate is warmed by the smells of breakfast cooking as she passes the apartments of the other, mostly Italian immigrant families. She smiles at the pleadings and the familiar voices she hears of her neighbors getting ready for another day in the big city. Waiting for Kate on the front stoop of 515 East 11th Street are the other girls she walks to work with most every day. As they walked west on East 11th Street the conversation turned more than likely to some holiday celebrations as Passover and Easter were both on the horizon. Probably they talked about boys. Fanciful thoughts of a new skirt or hat for the holidays would not have been out of the question as Saturday was a day of possibilities, Saturday was payday.

Sadly, Kate and her friends would never cash their checks, or buy those special holiday treats. At about a quarter of five, as the girls packed their belongings at the end of a long work day, a fire broke out on the 8th floor of the Asche Building, home to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. It was a perfect storm for an industrial tragedy. The factory was crowded with seamstresses packed close together to maximize profits. The women were told to dump the scrap fabric right at their feet to limit time away from the machines, leaving an abundance of fuel. Most of the girls were Italian like Kate or from Eastern Europe like her friend Ida Brodsky, age 16. The girls had never been trained in what to do in case of a fire. So as the conflagration spread, they panicked. Screaming, hundreds of young women headed for the exits. Most Americans familiar with this story have heard that the owners of the company locked the doors to keep the girls at work and to keep them from stealing fabric. Investigations later revealed that the doors opened inward and the crush of bodies in a panic prevented the girls from simply stepping back and opening the door. The owners of the factory were later aquitted of manslaughter charges.

Some workers found a way to get down. A few lucky girls rode the freight elevator which apparently made only one trip. With the elevator stalled, some girls attempted to slide down the elevator cables, some actually made it, many were found later in a crumpled heap of bodies on top of the elevator. A number of girls found their way to the only working fire escape. This worked for a while until the fire escape collapsed under the weight of so many women. Killing many who were so close to saftey. With the fire spreading quickly and the FDNY ladders only reaching the 6th floor, many girls were left with no choice. According to an eyewitness...

"I walked through Washington Square Park to get closer to the commotion. As I neared the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place I noticed a bale of dark dress goods come out of a top floor window. I thought that someone was trying to save expensive cloth. Then another bale came down, and another. One caught the wind and opened. It was not a bale of goods, it was a young woman." Driven to the choice of burning to death or plummeting 8 or 9 stories to the concrete, many girls chose the latter. Many of the girls, too scared to jump alone, actually held hands in pairs or large groups and jumped together. It was this image, seared into the minds of so many New Yorkers, that proved symbolic of the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire.

I first learned of this fire in History of The American Labor Movement, a class I took at SUNY Buffalo. Haunted by the stories of these girls I continued to read all I could about the fire. Home on break my junior year I took a pilgrimage to the very spot. I worked on the assumption there would be a small museum, or something to commemorate the 146 people who died in the fire. Before 9/11, this was the worst workplace fire in New York City history. I got off the F train, and like the eyewitness, I walked through Washington Square Park. As I neared the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place I felt myself looking up towards the 8th, 9th and 10th floors. Once in front of the building, I checked the lobby for a list of tenants, figuring the museum would be listed there. Nothing. I asked a few pedestrians, all I got was blank stares. And then I saw it, as I was standing on the corner, the only thing to remind New Yorkers as they pass this historic spot during their workaday lives, a small commemorative plaque on the corner of the Asche Building.

November 22, 1963



December 7, 1941




September 11, 2001


Kate Leone and all of the young women who died that fateful Saturday deserve to be remembered. March 25, 1911 should take it's rightful place alongside the other dates we rightfully commemorate every year.

I would imagine Kate's family and the families of the victims could eventually take solace in the what happened after the fire. News of the fire captivated New Yorkers immediately. A huge public outcry called for: safer working conditions, mandatory fire drills and sprinkler systems among other things. And change came quickly. The FDNY started the Fire Commission, and the State of New York gave it some authority to actually enforce the new laws.
P.S.
I can't explain why I have been so drawn to this story. One of my more "mystical" friends says she thinks I must be related to one of the victims. If you have any interest, Cornell University has a great site devoted to the fire. And David Von Drehle's book was very readable narrative history.


6 comments:

  1. Jim,
    I have a (2) CT girlfriends who teach me lots about Women in History. One of these friends & her husband are career long employees of Labor Union. One or the other of these friends snail-mailed me a postcard early this March, re-telling the very story you detail, in brief & in celebration of safer Labor Laws. I really admire that you wrote about this. Will introduce my friends Connie & Gina to this blog by way of this story. I have a hunch your mystical friend is spot on, OR why not simply a "spirit", unrelated to you knows how to work through YOU. Keeping 'em coming Spinner!
    ~ Sara

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great writing... Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  3. Historically accurate and sad, I thought this was a good piece and a nice tribute to some forgotten young ladies now that it is almost 100 years later. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a biggie in my house growing up and gave rise to many unions to protect workers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My, oh-my. (I am sorry to see the SLY followup. Numbsculls.)

    Thank you, Jim, for this post (as for all of them.)

    THIS was an important day to remember. It is all to easy in this day of corporatized busy-ness to forget the reasons and the needs from which Unions were formed, by blood, sweat, tears and lives - to prevent such horrific - and sadly, once-common, tragedies as the Triangle nightmare.

    My man, PJ, posted that day, too.
    http://www.hmsimpossible.com/

    (You may have to scan down, as tomorrow is Sterling Hayden's Birthday and he will be commemorating with a new post... but "Triangle" is the next post down). Watch the video if you have a few minutes. There are some incredible b & w's (Lewis Hine's photos are in there) of textile mills from MA to NYC, as well as very sad images of the men, women and children lost that day.

    Only in the name of control, and PROFIT.

    And I am sorry to say - that I know we could find similar situations nearer to us than we would like to believe, today.

    I appreciate the time you took to educate folks about this, the second largest workplace/highrise disaster in our nation. The parallels to the first (9/11) are uncanny.

    It can get better - Keep the faith!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Like all tragic accident's, this was preventable. It often takes a tragedy to bring about useful change as was the case in the aftermath of this fire. I think the Triangle fire is distinquishable from the other 3 noted dates because those 3 instances were delibrate acts of violence. Human nature reacts differently when an act is delibrate as opposed to accidental. For the most part, this incident is forgotten and rarely taught, nice puul Jim, RTD

    ReplyDelete
  6. My great aunt worked at the Triangle Shirt Factory but unfortunately I did not realized this until after she passed away. She was a spectacular seamstress but there is noone left in the family who knows which years she worked there.
    I admit to having a small fasination with this tragedy so thanks for the blog and the other reference.

    ReplyDelete