Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 13, 1911 “Echoes from the Triangle Fire…Americans Need Big Shocks”
From The Ladies’ Garment Worker of September 1911:
Echoes from the Triangle Fire.
Dr. Price Suggests Co-operation Between
the Waist Makers’ Union and the
Board of Sanitary Control.
The whole community is responsible for the safety of its workers.
Parents and friends of the 145 victims who were in the Triangle fire, says the New York “Call,” and of the scores of workers who saved their lives but were maimed and injured, have written, telephoned and appeared in person at the office of the Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union, in the last two days, calling upon the union to see to it that Harris & Blanck, the owners of the Triangle shop, be brought to trial.
The parents and friends of the victims also called upon the union officials to demand an account from the Red Cross as to the manner in which $100,000 collected for the benefit of the families of the fire victims, has been disposed of, if it had been disposed of.
As a result of these numerous calls the Executive Board of the Ladies’ Waist Maker’s Union stirred up the committee of three which has been appointed some time ago to look into the Triangle case, to immediate, vigorous activity.
The committee, which consists of Sam Spivack, A. Silver, and Sam Gusman, met last night at 151 Clinton street to decide upon plans to co-operate with the parents and friends of the fire victims, and to determine upon ways and means of improving conditions in the shops where the lives of workers are daily exposed to the fire panics.
Several of the parents and friends of the Triangle victims, who called at the office of the Ladies’ Waist Makers’ Union, said that they will either get up a petition or will write personal letters to District Attorney Whitman calling upon him to bring Harris and Blanck to trial.
Dr. George M. Price, M. D., the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the Cloak and Suit Industry of New York, has written to the “Call” suggesting a way in which the Board might co-operate with the Waistmakers’ Union.
Americans need big shocks, says Dr. Price.
Because several meetings have been held, because a “safety committee” has been appointed, because the papers devoted a few pages to factory fire damages, it is not to be expected that the 30,000 shops in the city should have suddenly become improved, that new fire escapes should have been put in where needed, and that workers should have become interested in protecting their lives from fires instead of devoting their whole time to the most important question of election of business delegates?
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 23, 1911 New York, New York – Blanck and Harris Indicted for Manslaughter
From The Outlook of April 22, 1911:
Indictments in the Asch Fire Case
Last week the Grand Jury of New York found indictments against the proprietors of the Triangle Waist Company, Issac Harris and Max Blanck. These two men constitute the firm who employed the factory operatives of whom 143 [146] lost their lives in the terrible disaster in Washington Place, New York, on March 25.The indictments against them are for manslaughter in the first and second degree, and they are based, so the District Attorney states, on what he believes to be strong evidence that some at least of the doors through which the girls might have escaped were habitually kept locked and were locked at the time of the fire.
The law requires that doors in such a factory shall open outwardly where practicable, and shall not be locked, bolted, or fastened during working hours. The evidence before the coroner’s jury has been conflicting on this point, but the Grand Jury, it is asserted, had before it a fragment of a tightly locked door. Meanwhile, Mr. Whitman, the District Attorney, laid before the Grand Jury the testimony of witnesses who stated that the doors on the Washington Place side of the building were kept locked, and the Italian Consul is reported to have taken affidavits of many Italian girls who swore that the Washington Place doors were locked and never used for exit.
It is further asserted that it is capable of proof that two girls in particular lost their lives directly because these doors were locked.
We need not point out that the men accused are entitled to a suspension of opinion until they are actually tried. Whatever may be the facts in this case, there is considerable evidence that it is deplorably common custom for doors in similar establishments to be locked.
Immediately after the fire The Outlook quoted from the report of a special committee made up from the Cloakmakers’ Union and the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association. It stated that they had found twenty-two shops in which the doors leading to the hall and stairways were locked during the day, while other provisions of law were constantly violated in a much larger number of shops.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 9, 1911 Mass Meeting at Metropolitan Opera House Stands for Fire Prevention
From The Survey of April 8, 1911:
THE COMMON WELFARE
PREVENTION OF FACTORY FIRES
Prevention was the keynote of the whole week in discussion of the Triangle factory fire in New York and in other industrial cities which have begun to take stock of their risks. There were many meetings, chief of which was the citizens’ mass meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House, reported on succeeding pages, which resulted in the appointment of a committee of five made up of Eugene A. Philbin, chairman; Mary A. Dreier, Edward T. Devine, William Jay Schieffelin, Lillian D. Wald, and Peter Brady. The New York American has organized a committee on prevention of which Ernest Flagg, an eminent architect, is chairman and the other members are Fire Chief Croker, P. Tecumseh Sherman, formerly state commissioner of labor, and William Archer, a builder.
A conference under call of R. Fulton Cutting, president of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, appointed a committee consisting of Mr. Cutting, Franklin B. Kirkbride, Leopold Plaut, Homer Folks and John A. Kingsbury which, in conjunction with the mass meeting committee, is organizing a permanent body on fire prevention.
On Wednesday (after this issue had gone to press) public burial was given the eight unclaimed bodies and the workers of the city planned an enormous silent parade in their honor.
One of the events of the week was the opening of the Triangle Waist Company in another building. A violation of the law was immediately filed against it for installing a row of sewing machines in front of the exit to the fire-escapes. The proprietor asked the Ladies ‘ Shirtwaist Union to organize his shop, but no action was taken.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 8, 1911 Women March in Cold Rain for Unidentified Victims of Triangle Fire
From the New York Tribune of April 6, 1911:
There was majestic silence and sullen rain. But it was a silence that spoke. Their fellow workers to the number 145 had been launched into eternity as the result of the Asch Building fire on March 25. And so [thousands] marched in murmurless protest through the principal streets of the city yesterday.
The steady downpour did not divert girls who were without umbrellas, without hats, without overshoes and rubber coats from their determination to show public honor to fellow workers who had perished…..
If the day had been filled with sunshine the funeral procession would have been impressive. Perhaps, however, there would then have been the chance to minimize the intensity of feeling existing among the marching members of the sympathizing unions. Only a high devotion and sense of duty could be responsible for yesterday’s protest.
Low hanging clouds and fog shrouded the tops of buildings. The Metropolitan tower was invisible above its clock. There was the suggestion of smoke in the atmosphere. The streets were filled with puddles of water. Women in lamb’s wool coats, accustomed to ride in automobiles, were splashed by passing vehicles as they trudged along in the beating rain, anxious to demonstrate the sympathy felt by the Woman Suffrage party. Hundreds of thousands stood on the sidewalks, their umbrellas appropriately indicating unbroken borders of black. Policemen, mounted and afoot, wore regulation black raincoats.
There was no playing of plaintive music, no muffled drum beat. The spectacle was without ostentation, flourish or display. Banners bore the legend “We mourn our loss” in black and white. There was a solemn expression on the faces of those who marched and those who watched from office buildings, stores and private houses. Flags on public buildings were at half-mast; thousands of other structures were draped in funeral decorations.
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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