The Factory Girls: A Kaleidoscopic Account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

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© 2017 Christine Seifert | All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review. | Juvenile Nonfiction / Girls & Women | ISBN: 978-1-942186-45-8 | Design: Adam Grano

Manufactured in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Five Brave Girls

Chapter 2

A Puff of Smoke

Chapter 3

The Price of Fashion

Chapter 4

Coming to America

Chapter 5

The Self-Made Man

Chapter 6

Life in the Factory

Chapter 7

Corruption in the Gilded Age

Chapter 8

Union Girls

Chapter 9

Triangle Factory on Strike

Chapter 10

After the Flames

Chapter 11

History Repeats

For Further Reading

Selected References

Prologue

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 remains one of the worst workplace tragedies in American history. I first read about the fire my freshman year in college. I vividly remember sitting in the dining hall at lunch, opening my history textbook, and quickly becoming too absorbed in the story to eat my turkey sandwich. The book included only a couple of paragraphs—just a few measly lines to set up a longer section about labor policy in the Progressive Era. But I was desperate to know more: Who were these girls, and how did they end up in that New York City factory on March 25, 1911? What must life have been like for a factory girl in the early 1900s in America? And how do we make sure the factory girls’ story is never forgotten? This book is an attempt to answer those questions.

But first, a few notes about how I went about researching this story. There is, fortunately for us, a rich array of primary and secondary sources that provide insight into the lives of the girls who worked in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. All the information in this book comes from multiple primary and secondary sources. (You’ll find a complete reference section and suggestions for further reading at the end.) I, like anyone else who has written about the Triangle fire, am indebted to Leon Stein in particular. His 1985 book, The Triangle Fire, is a gold mine of primary source accounts, including oral histories. His work also informed an unparalleled online repository at Cornell University: http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/index.html. This website is a fantastic resource for anyone seeking to learn more about the Triangle tragedy. All the information I present that is directly related to the fire itself comes from Stein’s book and the Cornell site. In some cases, I relied on books published after Stein’s, including David von Drehle’s Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (2003) and Albert Marrin’s Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy (2011). These materials were critically important for my understanding of the fire, its victims, and the aftermath.

When sources disagreed, I generally went with Leon Stein’s facts, except in cases where he was drawing from newspaper accounts. As von Drehle warns, newspaper reporting was often unreliable; publishers were eager to get stories out before reporters had proper and sufficient information. You’ll find that, whenever necessary, I specify if a disagreement among sources stemmed from bad reporting.

Even with all the useful resources about the fire, details about the victims were often hard to find. Cornell’s site was useful for biographical information. I also relied heavily on Ancestry.com and Ellis Island’s immigration records. If I could, I would write the story of every girl in the factory, but biographical information is very hard to find, and in some cases the task is impossible. When I was able to access biographical information, I tried to paint as clear an image of the girl’s life and background as I possibly could. In instances where I couldn’t be sure about specific facts of day-to-day life, I indicate that I am hypothesizing based on historical research.

This book presents the story of five Triangle Factory workers: Annie Miller, Bessie Gabrilowich, Rose Rosenfeld, Fannie Lansner, and Kate Leone. You’ll meet them in Chapter 1, where you’ll learn about their families and their backgrounds. You’ll also see exactly where they were in the factory that afternoon the fire broke out.

In Chapters 2 and 3, we’ll leave our heroines for a bit to learn about what was happening in America that led to the expansion of factory-produced consumer goods. We’ll start in the late 1800s to learn about the rise of consumerism and marketing, both of which led to mass production in the early 1900s. In Chapter 4, we’ll look at immigration patterns in the later 1800s and early 1900s to understand why people were rushing to America at this particular time in history. In Chapter 5, we’ll learn about the political and cultural climate then and how it foreshadowed troubling economic inequities, and why, as a result, labor unions formed to fight against unfair wages and unsafe working conditions. In Chapter 6, you’ll discover what a day in the factories was like. Chapter 7 explores the extent of corruption in the Gilded Age and beyond that led to the factory conditions. In Chapters 8 and 9, you’ll read about people who formed unions and fought against unfair labor practices.

In each chapter, you’ll meet girls from all walks of life—girls who worked in factories, who married millionaires, and who led labor strikes. These vignettes are designed to give you a full picture of America at a pivotal moment in history. Most authors who have written about the Triangle fire focus on the progressive reforms prompted by the fire. While I’ll certainly mention some of those reforms in workplace safety and pay equity, my goal is to present a thorough understanding of how culture, politics, labor policy, and economics came together to form conditions in which the Triangle fire was bound to happen. To do that, I refer back to the Gilded Age, a historical period that began around 1870 and lasted until about 1900. I spend a great deal of time exploring the Gilded Age to show you that the decisions that Americans made—about what they wore and how they bought it—slowly created conditions that culminated in the Triangle fire.

In Chapter 10, we’ll return to our five heroines—Annie, Bessie, Rose, Fannie, and Kate—to learn what happened to them in the fire. Some survived; others did not. We’ll reflect on their legacies and the ways they impacted the larger world that surrounded them.

As you’ll see in Chapter 11, while American laws exist now to protect workers, companies often move their production offshore, where conditions are every bit as dire as those in early twentieth-century American factories. You’ll read about some small ways you can help change the world by fighting against economic and labor policies that exploit workers in order to line the pockets of a few oligarchic companies. In some cases, you can make changes just by being more aware of your power as a consumer!

As you read, you might wonder why I often chose to call the young Triangle workers girls rather than women. That’s because I want to underscore the point that, for the most part, the people involved were still children. Many weren’t even teenagers yet. Even those who might be classified as women were heartbreakingly young. The term girl isn’t meant to undermine any of the Triangle workers; instead, it is intended to recognize that the people most affected by the Triangle tragedy were very young—and that that was just one of the ways in which they were vulnerable.

As you can probably tell by now, this book, at its core, is about more than just that horrible day of the Triangle fire. It’s about the days leading up to the fire, the days when America was changing in ways that would shape our nation into what it is today. It’s the story of what happened after the fire, when survivors were forced to relive the pain in a trial that captivated the country. This book is also about the ways that our habits as consumers—then and now—shape the workplace and our labor force. It’s about how the everyday decisions we make affect millions of other people—here at home and abroad, right now and in the future.

Most of all, let’s not forget that this book is about the Triangle Factory workers, the victims of an economic and labor system that succeeded precisely because it exploited and sometimes destroyed the very workers that sustained the system. This is a book about people who deserve to be remembered: the girls.

Chapter 1

Five Brave Girls

The day’s work was supposed to end at six in the afternoon. But, during most of the year we youngsters worked overtime until 9 p.m. every night except Fridays and Saturdays. No, we did not get additional pay for overtime. At this point it is worth recording the generocity [sic] of the Triangle Waist Co. by giving us a piece of apple pie for supper instead of additional pay!

—Pauline Newman

I longed for my mother and a home where it would be light and warm and she would be waiting when we came from work.

—Rose Cohen

On a Saturday afternoon in March 1911, a small fire started on the eighth floor of the ten-story Asch Building. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, at the intersection of Washington Place and Green Street in Manhattan, used the top three floors for its massive production of shirtwaists, a new kind of fashionable blouse that women all over America wanted to wear. The demand for shirtwaists was so high that the Triangle Factory employed more than five hundred workers who spent more than nine hours a day, six days a week, mass-producing garments for women of all ages and backgrounds.

The tiny fire that afternoon grew into a raging inferno, an uncontrollable fire that injured or killed hundreds of people. Those who survived were haunted for the rest of their lives by the images they saw, the sounds they heard, and the searing heat they felt. The Triangle Factory fire of 1911 is inarguably one of the greatest workplace tragedies in American history, and one that should never be forgotten.

The hundreds of young people working in the factory were mostly immigrants, often heartbreakingly young, almost all women, and all poor. The complete lack of regard shown for them by their employers and by the government (which had yet to regulate safety in workplaces) left them vulnerable. They trusted that they were safe when they went to work, but they were far from safe. In just fifteen terrifying minutes, almost 150 souls perished as a result of the flames or smoke inhalation, or the plummet to the sidewalk below.

As in many tragedies, a silver lining emerged, one that certainly wouldn’t bring back the lives of these vibrant young people but would eventually change America. The Triangle fire eventually led to significant reforms in American workplace safety and labor laws

In this chapter, you’ll meet five girls, ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-one, who were in the Triangle Factory on that fateful day. Some will survive. Some won’t. All had dreams—dreams that didn’t involve toiling in a factory for the rest of their lives.

Annie Miller (16), The Fighter

When Annie Miller made her way to work on Saturday, March 25, 1911, it was a day like any other day—save for Sunday, when she rested. The daughter of Austrian immigrants, Annie was born in America, the first American-born citizen in her family, and grew up in a small apartment on 154 Attorney Street, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She lived with her parents, Adolph and Bessie Miller, and her two brothers. It wasn’t a nice apartment by any stretch of the imagination, not even at the time, but it was home to the family, who had left Europe for new opportunities in a new country. (Today, a one-bedroom, eight-hundred-square-foot condo on Attorney Street sells for more than a million dollars. But Annie and her family certainly didn’t have granite countertops, a rooftop garden, or access to exercise rooms that tenants there do now.) The location of the apartment was perfect for the Millers. The Triangle Factory was a little more than a mile away, so Annie could walk to work in just twenty minutes. Even on March 25, when the morning weather was wet, there was a chance for her to get some fresh air on her trek through the city to work.

To pay the bills, every member of the family had to work. While Annie probably would have loved to attend school, education was a luxury that most immigrant families couldn’t afford. Annie, like most of the neighborhood girls her age, had a factory job that helped support her family and likely provided a few leftover pennies for herself. If she saved for a few months, she could buy a new hat, a pair of gloves, or a new blouse.

Some weeks Annie might have had enough to go to the movie theater. A ticket for short films would have been just a quarter or even less. Two days before the fire, a new short film had come out, one that Annie might have been looking forward to seeing after work. Called The Lonedale Operator, it was the thrilling drama about a young girl who has to deal with two robbers after agreeing to cover for her sick father at the Lonedale train station office. The girl proves cleverer than the villains bargain for. She locks herself in a room with the money and turns down the lights. When the men finally break in, they find her pointing a gun at them. They freeze until her boyfriend, the train operator, returns to the station. The big twist is that the girl’s gun is no more than a monkey wrench. The heroine was played by Blanche Sweet, a movie star who in 1911 was just a year younger than Annie Miller. But Blanche Sweet’s life was surely far more exciting than Annie’s. Faced with boring and repetitive work all day long, Annie must have relished the adventure and romance—and teenage heroines—that were available to her (almost exclusively) at the movies.

By our standards today, Annie’s factory job wasn’t a good job. It was hard labor. Annie had to work six days a week for nine or more hours a day—sometimes as many as fourteen hours a day. She was given very few breaks, including just a short period for eating her lunch. She wasn’t allowed to talk with her coworkers while she was working. That would’ve slowed everybody down, and productivity was paramount.

To add insult to injury, Annie and her colleagues were searched on their way out of the building to make sure they hadn’t stolen anything. The owners of garment factories feared that the young girls they employed would be tempted to steal a bit of a ribbon or a piece of material if given the chance.

For all her hard work and the sacrifice of her education, Annie probably made no more than about $6 a month. But getting a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was quite an accomplishment. At the age of sixteen, Annie had a few years to go before getting married, which meant that she still had time to move up the ladder in the factory—something that was made more likely by the fact that she was American born. She might one day become a forewoman and increase her monthly pay. That job was at least less boring and offered more opportunity for a girl to use her brain.

A few minutes after 4:30 on that Saturday afternoon, Annie was wrapping up her workday. She gathered her coat, her hat, and her pocketbook. She would have been walking briskly, a spring in her step, because she didn’t have to return to the factory until Monday morning. It wasn’t much of a weekend, but it was something. All the girls looked forward to quitting time on Saturday. Even though they were bone tired, they made the most of their free evenings.

As Annie made her way to the stairs at quitting time, she must have smelled smoke. She might have felt the panic start