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

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

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 6, 1911
“The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part II

From Life and Labor of May 1911:

The Triangle Fire

By Martha Bensley Bruere

Well, the fire is over, the girls are dead, and as I write, the procession in honor of the unidentified dead is moving by under my windows. Now what is going to be done about it?

Triangle Fire, Mourning Procession, LnL p139, May 1911

Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Company, have offered to pay one week’s wages to the families of the dead girls-as though it were summer and they are giving them a vacation! Three days after the fire they inserted in the trade papers this notice:

NOTICE, THE TRIANGLE WAIST CO. beg to notify
their customers that they are in good working order.
HEADQUARTERS now at 9-11 University Place.

The day after they were installed in their new quarters, the Building Department of New York City discovered that 9-11 University Place was not even fireproof, and that the firm had already blocked the exit to the one fire escape by two rows of sewing machines, 75 in a row, and that at the same time repairs were begun on the old quarters in the burned building under a permit winch called for no improvements or alterations of any conditions existing before the fire. It called for repairs only, which means, it was generally conceded, that the place would be re-opened in the same condition it was in before the fire.

That is what the employers have done.

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

Hellraisers Journal: From The Survey: Citizen’s Mass Meeting Stands for Factory Fire Prevention after Triangle Disaster

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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Life So Cheap, NY Met Opera Hse, Apr 2, Survey p84, Apr 8, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 9, 1911
Mass Meeting at Metropolitan Opera House Stands for Fire Prevention

From The Survey of April 8, 1911:

The Survey Social Charitable Civic, Apr 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.

Real Triangle by Sloan re Fire, Survey p81, Apr 8, 1911 Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Survey: Citizen’s Mass Meeting Stands for Factory Fire Prevention after Triangle Disaster”

Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: “We are slain on the altar of Greed, and burned to the image of Graft.”

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Quote Irwin Tucker Poem Triangle Fire Sacrifice, NY Cl p1, Apr 5, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 6, 1911
New York, New York – “The Sacrifice” by Irwin Tucker and Gordon Nye

From The New York Call of April 5, 1911:

Triangle Fire, The Sacrifice, Poem Tucker, Drwg Nye, NY Cl p1, Apr 5, 1911

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: “We are slain on the altar of Greed, and burned to the image of Graft.””

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

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 4, 1911
New York, New York – Rose Schneiderman Speaks at Metropolitan Opera House

From The New York Times of April 3, 1911:

MASS MEETING CALLS FOR NEW FIRE LAWS
———-
Metropolitan Opera House Gathering Decides to
Name a Standing Committee on Protection.
———-

WORKERS NOT IN ACCORD
———-
Woman Union Leader Says They Have Lost Faith
In the Public and Must Rely on Themselves.
———-

Triangle Fire, Compliance Fire Escape by B Robinson, NY Tb p1, Mar 28, 1911

More people went to the Metropolitan Opera House yesterday to participate in the council on the Asch Building fire disaster than could find seats in the grand tier, where the boxes were reserved, or in the orchestra and galleries, where they were open to all. Those in the grand tier came in automobiles, and were admitted at a special side entrance opened thirty minutes before the other doors. Those in the orchestra floor for the main part were from the upper west side, while the east siders overflowed one gallery after another until they had packed the house.

The meeting, which lasted from 3 o’clock until 5:20, proved to be more cosmopolitan than harmonious. The men in the upper galleries, instead of applauding the programme brought forward by the leaders to obtain better fire protection laws, reserved their loudest cheers for those who dissented from the programme, on the ground that citizens’ committees were incapable of doing any real good and had always proved a failure.

The outcome of the meeting was the adoption of resolutions by a partial vote calling for the creation of a permanent committee to advocate new legislation and see that there is no official neglect to enforce such laws as now exist.

The dissenters from this programme held that there would be no improvement for the working classes until in class solidarity they demanded it at the polls and through committees of their own. They advocated the organization of working people into Assembly district committees and the giving of fire inspectorship privileges to labor union officials.

The Speakers Interrupted.

Rose Schneiderman,ed, LOC, see Chg Un Lbr Adv p26, Jan 1909

Every little while from the topmost gallery shouts from Socialists interrupted the speakers, and once the meeting got away from the Chairman’s control while those upstairs cheered for the interrupters and those below attempted to hiss them down. There was one moment when feeling grew tense to a snapping point, and the audience was held too closely by the speaker’s words to interrupt or applaud as the girl who had been speaking went back up the stage to her seat.

Rose Schneiderman, who led the workers out of the Triangle factory in their strike two years ago and bailed them out after being arrested, found words difficult when she tried to speak. She stood silent for a moment, and then began to speak hardly above a whisper. But the silence was such that everywhere they carried clearly……

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