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8/8/2019 Triangle Shirt Waist Fire - Where They Lived - NYMSA
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Who They Were:
Lower East Side
The chalk always washes awayWell always
come back next yearThats what social justice
and memory is all about. Its not like its ever over.
Ruth Sergal
8/8/2019 Triangle Shirt Waist Fire - Where They Lived - NYMSA
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Who Chalks and Why:
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
The Coalition is spearheading educational,
commemorative, and memorial activities that promote
active social engagement. In concert withorganizations and individuals across the city, we are
creating a living memorial to remember not only the
people who died but the powerful social conscience
and action that their deaths inspired. The Coalitionsupports: Establishing a permanent memorial
8/8/2019 Triangle Shirt Waist Fire - Where They Lived - NYMSA
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Where They Lived:
Lower East Side
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The Preface:
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
The shirtwaist kings," Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were called
owned the largest firm in the business. Each operator had 6
people who in effect worked for the operator at the factory.
Greenhorns mainly took these jobs since conditions at the
Triangle Shirtwaist were considered so terrible that they helped
spark the 1909 strike which lasted over 13 weeks
This became known as the Strike of 20,000 and marked the
beginnings of the ILGWU
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The Strike of 1909: Clara Lemlich
Better to Die Fast than Starve Slow
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What Happened:
Locked Doors
Assistant cashier Joseph Flecher looked down from the
tenth floor roof to see my girls, my pretty ones, going downthrough the air. They hit the sidewalk spread out and
still. Fire Chief Edward Croker told the press that doors
leading into the factory workplace appeared to be locked
and that his men had to chop their way through doors to get
at the fire. Fire Chief Croker issued a statement urging
girls employed in lofts and factories to refuse to work when
they find [potential escape] doors locked. (by Douglas Linder (c) 2002)
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What Happened:
Those Who Jumped
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The Aftermath:
The Funeral of the Unknown
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The Aftermath:
100,000 Mourners
The temporary morgue at Twenty-Sixth street had over
100,000 visitors. At an emotional protest meeting on Twenty-
Second Street four days after the fire, relatives of the dead
broke into hysterical cries of despair. People began fainting,
and over fifty persons were treated. The editor of a socialist
paper told the crowd that These deaths resulted because
capital begrudged the price of another fire escape." At CooperUnion, a banner stretching across the platform said: Locked
doors, overcrowding, inadequate fire escapes....We demand
for all women the right to protect themselves. (Douglas Linder (c) 2002)
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The Aftermath:
The Triangle Shirtwaist FireThough indicted on charges of manslaughter, the owners, Harris
and Blanck were not convicted on the grounds that they didnt
know the 9th
floor door was locked. This was despite testimonyshowing they locked it to prevent pilfering
A nine-member Factory Investigating Commission undertook a
thorough examination of safety and working conditions in New
York factories. The Commission's recommendations led to whatis called "the golden era in remedial factory legislation." During
the period 1911 to 1914, thirty-six new laws reforming the state
labor code were enacted. ( Douglas Linder (c) 2002).
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The Aftermath:
The Triangle Shirtwaist FireFrances Perkins, a Commission member who became
Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt Administration, later
stated:
Out of that terrible episode came a self-examination of stricken conscience in
which the people of this state saw for the first time the individual worth and value
of each of those 146 people who fell or were burned in that great fire...We all felt
that we had been wrong, that something was wrong with that building which we
had accepted or the tragedy never would have happened. Moved by this sense
of stricken guilt, we banded ourselves together to find a way by law to prevent
this kind of disaster....It was the beginning of a new and important drive to bring
the humanities to the life of the brothers and sisters we all had in the working
groups of these United States.
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Who Chalks and Why:
Tropes of Disaster
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Who Chalks and Why:
Outcomes of Sites of TragedyKevin Foote:
Initial outpouring of grief and stricken guilt remains
in ceremonies and laws. The building becomes a site
ofrectification, practically unmarked as blame is
detached from the site
The re-emergence of its importance as the
centennial approaches opens new possibilities
including permanent memoralizationSlow continuous emergence of retrospective
meanings allows lessons to feel vital today and
create new forms of commemoration despite general
equivocation about inscribing sites of labor history
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The Aftermath:
The Triangle Shirtwaist FireAsch Building NYUs Brown Building of Science