Hellraisers Journal: “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part I -from Life and Labor, Official Organ of WTUL

5th May 20216th May 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Morris Rosenfeld fr Triangle Requiem, JDF Mar 29, 1911, L Stein 1962 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 5, 1911
“The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part I

From Life and Labor of May 1911:

The Triangle Fire

By Martha Bensley Bruere

The Triangle Shirt Waist Shop in New York City, which was the scene of the great fire on March 25th, when 143 [146] workers were killed, was also the starting point of the strike of the forty-thousand shirt waist workers in 1909.

The girls struck because they wished to stand together for decent shop conditions, wages on which they could live and reasonable hours, and neither Mr. Harris nor Mr. Blanck, both of whom were members of the Manufacturers’ Association, would allow their workers to unite in any way at all.

It happened that I did picket duty morning and night before that shop and saw the striking girls go up to the strike-breakers and ask timidly:

“Don’t you know there’s a strike by the Triangle?”

It was before this Triangle Shop that the girls were clubbed by the police and by the hired thugs who assisted them; and it was in the streets around it that a large number of arrests were made. The girl pickets were dragged to court, but every one from this shop was discharged. The police and the government of the city had banded themselves together to protect the property of Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Shirt Waist firm.

The six hundred girls who worked at the Triangle Shop were beaten in the strike. They had to go back without the recognition of the union and with practically no change in conditions. On the 25th of March it was these same policemen who bad clubbed them and beaten them back into submission, who kept the thousands in Washington Square from tramping upon their dead bodies, sent for the ambulances to carry them away, and lifted them one by one into the receiving coffins which the Board of Charities sent down in wagon loads.

I was coming down Fifth Avenue on that Saturday afternoon when a great swirling, billowing cloud of smoke swept like a giant streamer out of Washington Square and down upon the beautiful homes in lower Fifth Avenue. Just as I was turning into the Square two young girls whom I knew to be working in the vicinity came rushing toward me, tears were running from their eyes and they were white and shaking as they caught me by the arm.

“Oh,” shrieked one of them, “they are jumping.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part I -from Life and Labor, Official Organ of WTUL” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Murder of the Shirt Waist Makers” by Louis Duchez, Part II

4th May 20215th May 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Rose S, Triangle Fire Mourners March, Girls at Top of Buildings, NY Tb p2, Apr 6, 1911 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 4, 1911
Louis Duchez on Murder of Shirtwaist Makers in New York City, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of May 1911:

THE MURDER OF THE SHIRT WAIST MAKERS
IN NEW YORK CITY

BY LOUIS DUCHEZ

Photographs by American Press Ass’n.

[Part II of II.]

Violations of the law? Yes, enough to hang half a dozen rich exploiters and politicians. But these men won’t hang.

The owner of the building claimed he lived up to the letter of the law. So did the owners of the shirtwaist concern, Blanck and Harris. They blame the city officials. The State Commission of Labor also blames the city officials. On the other hand, the city officials are hunting for someone to point to. One of these gentlemen divides the guilt between God and the “public conscience.”

The more important facts, however, are as follows: While the holocaust was taking place the superintendent of public buildings, Rudolph P. Miller, was on a pleasure trip to Panama. Under questioning conducted by Fire Marshal Beers he admitted that the Asch building, in which the fire took place, had not been inspected since it was built, ten years ago. He said he was not even sure that he passed on the building before it was occupied. Miller is not an architect; he is simply a civil engineer-with a “pull.” In his testimony he also admitted that he knew of “graft” from building owners being accepted by inspectors. Miller blamed the police department.

According to the state law, “fire-proof” buildings need not put up more than one fire escape. And that’s all the Asch building had. And this one was useless. When the flames heated the flimsy iron work. it bent like wire. Besides, the scaling ladders were not fit to use and the extension ladders reached only to the 6th floor. The hose, too, was rotten, and the fire apparatus was only so in name. Then iron shutters blocked the fire escape, such as it was.

The locked doors have been mentioned. There was no fire escape to the roof. The machines were so closely packed together, in order to save space. that a panic resulted when the fire first started. Large piles of combustible goods obstructed every aisle and opening, also, if the building and conditions had been deliberately planned for the cremation of human beings, it could not have been more perfect.

To look at the Asch building since the fire one could not tell from the outside that anything had happened to it, were it not for the broken windows. As a matter of fact, the damage only reached $5,000. Everything was insured-but the slaves.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Murder of the Shirt Waist Makers” by Louis Duchez, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Outlook: “The Factory Girl’s Danger” by Miriam Finn Scott -Stories from the Triangle Fire

23rd April 202123rd April 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Hellraisers Journal: Metropolitan Opera House: Rose Schneiderman Speaks to Public: “We Have Found You Wanting” —————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 24, 1911
Stories from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

From The Outlook of April 15, 1911:

THE FACTORY GIRL’S DANGER

BY MIRIAM FINN SCOTT

On Friday evening, March 24, two young sisters walked down the stairways from the ninth floor where they were employed and joined the horde of workers that nightly surges homeward into New York’s East Side. Since eight o’clock they had been bending over shirt-waists of silk and lace, tensely guiding the valuable fabrics through their swift machines, with hundreds of power driven machines whirring madly about them; and now the two were very weary, and were filled with that despondency which comes after a day of exhausting routine, when the next day, and the next week, and the next year, hold promise of nothing better than just this same monotonous strain.

“Operators Wanted. Inquire Ninth Floor.”

They were moodily silent when they sat down to supper in the three-room tenement apartment where they boarded. At last their landlady (who told me of that evening’s talk, indelibly stamped upon her mind) inquired if they were feeling unwell.

“Oh, I wish we could quit the shop!” burst out Becky, the younger sister, aged eighteen. “That place is going to kill us some day.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Outlook: “The Factory Girl’s Danger” by Miriam Finn Scott -Stories from the Triangle Fire” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Evening World: “Some of the Girl Victims of Washington Place Fire Trap”

1st April 20211st April 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote William Shepherd, Triangle Fire, Shirtwaist Strikers of a Year Ago, Mlk Jr, Mar 27, 1911, Cornell —————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 1, 1911
New York, New York – Some of the Many Girls Who Perished in Triangle Fire

From the New York Evening World of March 27, 1911:

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Ad for “Diary of a Shirt Waist Striker” by Theresa Malkiel

7th September 202011th August 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote Clara Lemlich, Cooper Un Nov 22 re Uprising, NY Call p2, Nov 23, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 7, 1910
“Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker” by Theresa Serber Malkiel
-“A Story of the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike in New York”

From the International Socialist Review of September 1910:

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Ad for “Diary of a Shirt Waist Striker” by Theresa Malkiel” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Progressive Woman: Clara Lemlich and Fannie Zinsher, “Two Little Heroines”

4th May 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Clara Lemlich, Cooper Un Nov 22 re Uprising, NY Call p2, Nov 23, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 3, 1910
New York, New York – Clara Lemlich and Fannie Zinsher, Heroines

From The Progressive Woman of May 1910:

TWO LITTLE HEROINES

From The Survey of January 22, 1910
—–

I have listened to all the speakers and I have no patience for talk. I am one who feels and suffers for the things pictured. I move that we go on a general strike.—Clara Lemlich at the famous Cooper Union meeting.

The spontaneous strike of 20,000 shirt waist makers in New York City was the greatest event in the history of woman’s work. The majority of the strikers were mere girls, few of them over twenty years of age. They had no “great” leaders, but among them were individualities strong enough and great enough to hold a place in the history of our country’s industrial development. Two of these were Fannie Zinsher and Clara Lemlich. The following from The Survey [“The Spirit of the Strikers” by Mary Brown Sumner] is a sketch of the lives of these two brave little girls:

I have two pictures of Fanny Zinsher in my mind, one as she came from Russia at fourteen, fleeing from persecution to free America, with round cheeks, smiling, irresponsible lips and clear eyes full of interest and delight in living; the other after five years of American freedom, with sad sweet eyes whose sight was strained by the flashing of the needle and by study late at night, mouth drooping with a weight of sadness and responsibility and an expression of patience and endurance far beyond her twenty years.

She came a little high school girl from Kishineff to San Francisco. She did not know what work for wages was, but she and her brother four years older had to turn to and support a mother and a little brother. Three hundred power-machines in one long room of the garment factory welcomed this little human machine-in-the-making. The roar and flash of the needles terrified her. She tried to work, but her nerves went more and more to pieces, her frightened eyes failed to follow her fingers as they guided her work and the second day she slit a finger open and was laid up for three weeks. When she returned she could adapt herself no better to the nervous strain. At piece work she could earn little over one dollar a week, until a kind forewoman removed her to a smaller room where in time she rose to five dollars.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Graces Cover of International Socialist Review: “Arousing The Girl Strikers”

6th February 202012th March 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones to Philly Shirtwaist Makers Dec 19, NY Call Dec 21, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 6, 1910
Mother Jones in Philadelphia “Arousing the Girl Strikers”

From the International Socialist Review of February 1910:

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Hellraisers Journal: “How Girls Can Strike” -William Mailly on Uprising of the 20,000 for The Progressive Woman

4th February 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Esther of NYC Uprising Beaten by Father n Brother, Prog Wmn p6, Feb 1910 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 4, 1910
New York, New York – Girls Persist Despite Hunger, Cold and Beatings

From The Progressive Woman of February 1910:

How Girls Can Strike

BY WILLIAM MAILLY

“A whole lot has been published about what the rich women have done in this shirtwaist strike,” said a woman friend, “but I haven’t seen very much about what the girls themselves have done. Why isn’t something said about them?”

I had been going the rounds of the halls where the shop meetings of the strikers were held, collecting the proceeds from the Special Strike Edition of the Call. It was a dull, wet day, the East Side streets were slippery and dirty with a nasty mush consisting of a week-old snow mixed with the regular refuse that the rich metropolis is too poor to remove promptly from its working class districts. One did not walk through such streets; one slid, splashed and floundered and felt lucky to be able to do that without falling. And the cold rain soaked one through to the skin in short order.

I was leaving Astoria hall on East Fourth street when Gottlieb, the chairman of Casino hall, across the street, accosted me. He was accompanied by a young girl. She was thinly clad, her clothes were shabby, her shoes were torn and sodden, and her face and hands blue with cold.

“Mr. Mailly,” said Gottlieb, “look at this girl. I want to tell you about her. This is the worst case I have in our hall. It’s the worst case I’ve heard of. This girl is only sixteen years old—she has no father or mother living; she has no relatives or friends; she has only been in this country about six months; she can hardly talk English.

“Listen, Mr. Mailly.” Gottlieb was getting more excited as he went on.

This girl hasn’t had anything to eat all day—she is hungry-she must have something—and we can’t give it to her. Also she can not pay the rent of the room she lives in—she must get out if she cannot pay. We can do nothing; we have nothing.

And listen. Think of it. This girl, she got from a man a five-dollar bill for one copy of the Call in the Cafe Monopole on Second avenue today and she brought it in and gave it over to me. And she so hungry and with not a cent, and we needn’t have known she got that five dollars. Think of it! And she says she won’t scab-she doesn’t care what happens to her. But oh, Mr. Mailly, we must help her. You must give her something now. I have brought her to show you.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “How Girls Can Strike” -William Mailly on Uprising of the 20,000 for The Progressive Woman” →

Hellraisers Journal: “Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part II

27th January 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 26, 1910
New York, New York – How the Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike Began

From the Duluth Labor World of January 22, 1910:

—–

By ROBERTUS LOVE.

[Part II of II.]

How General Strike Began.

The general strike was not declared until Nov. 22, when at a great mass meeting in the hall of Cooper Union, where Abraham Lincoln made his first speech in the east, President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor delivered an address on the shirt waist workers’ situation. A Jewish girl [Clara Lemlich], representing many thousands of her nationality who work in the waist shops, advanced to the front of the platform and delivered in Yiddish an appeal to those of her race to strike immediately. More than 2,000 right hands went up in response. The sentiment for an immediate and wholesale strike spread to the Italian and American shirt waist makers, and the “walk out” of seven-eighths of those employed in that industry was the result.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: “Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part I

25th January 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 25, 1910
New York, New York – Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike Making History

From the Duluth Labor World of January 22, 1910:

—–

By ROBERTUS LOVE.

[Part I of II.]

IN the history of the world no such scenes have been witnessed as those which nearly two months past have characterized the strike of the shirt waist makers in the city of New York. Nearly 35,000 girls and women, members of the Ladies’ Shirt Waist Makers’ union, were engaged at first in this greatest strike of women workers ever known. For the first time since industrial conditions became such that women have been compelled to go out from home and support themselves and dependent relatives nearly all the workers in a great industry in one of the foremost cities of the world have engaged in a struggle with their employers, refusing to return to work until certain demands which they consider just shall be complied with by the bosses.

Conspicuous and significant features of the shirt waist girls’ strike have been the entrance into the struggle of many women of great wealth and high social position and of others whose collegiate culture may be calculated by the unthinking to lift them so far above the plane of the working girl that a feeling of sympathy for her is scarcely expected of them.

Yet these college bred women not only have declared their sympathy for the strikers, but many have gone on active service as watchers and pickets to aid them in inducing nonunion girls not to take their places.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part I” →

Category: New York Waistmakers Uprising of 1909-1910