research facts

Question 1

fire occurred in NYC on March 25, 1911.

Answer 1

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Question 2

146 workers, mostly women/girls, many of whom were Jewish & Italian immigrants, died in fire or lept from building in an attempt to escape flames.

Answer 2

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Question 3

Some workers from eighth floor + those on the floors below escaped. Other workers on eighth floor and most on the ninth and 10th floors perished.

Answer 3

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Question 4

500 employees of T.S.C. were preparing to leave work around 4:30 in the afternoon, It was end of workweek for the hundreds of workers who labored average of 54 hours, six days a week, Monday through Saturday

Answer 4

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Question 5

The factory was located on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the ten-story Asch Building in New York City. It was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. Both men were immigrants and former garment workers who eventually became rich factory owners.

Answer 5

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Question 6

Their Triangle Shirtwaist Factory produced women’s blouses known as “shirtwaists.”

Answer 6

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Question 7

Prior to the fire, Blanck and Harris were warned that the factory contained many fire hazards. Indeed, it seemed only a matter of time before such an accident took place within the Asch Building, as it had in previous properties owned by the pair. By this time, both men were already suspected of insurance fraud by secretly starting fires in other buildings after work hours. Unfortunately, this practice was not unheard of among many within the garment industry at the time. The fact that the Triangle factory deliberately lacked certain basic safety features, such as sprinklers and alarm systems, helped to bolster suspicions with regard to the circumstances surrounding the fire.

Answer 7

IQ #2

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Question 8

factory doors were kept locked to prevent theft and unauthorized breaks. Safety measures such as fire escapes and elevators were too narrow and were poorly maintained. These were substandard for a factory of about 500 workers, as only a few people could escape at a time even in the best of circumstances. Finally, fire extinguishers were in disrepair—which allowed the fire to spread rapidly even after people became aware of it.

Answer 8

IQ #2

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Question 9

Corruption was deemed a major factor in the deaths. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory’s management was staunchly anti-worker, and did everything it could to suppress labor unions. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) was the most prominent of these unions. There was a strong sense of sisterhood among the factory workers within the cramped upper floors of the Asch Building. Political corruption in the garment industry, however, was rampant, as politicians were often paid to ignore workers’ rights and unbearable working conditions.

Answer 9

IQ #2

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Question 10

Fire began on 8th floor. event took less than half an hr. fire reportedly spread from waste bin with scraps, possibly from an unexttinguished match or cigarette. Was fueled by highly flammable materials used in the factory. one of the workers tried to douse flames using fire extinguisher, but it was barely usable

Answer 10

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Question 11

Harris and Blanck were in building at the time of fire. informed of accident through phone and escaped the blaze by climbing over to neighboring rooftops

Answer 11

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Question 12

Young women became trapped by tables, bulky equipment and doors that locked or opened the wrong way

Answer 12

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Question 13

As people struggled to escape, several fell into the flames, their bodies piling by blocked exits. Others leapt—in twos and threes—out the burning building’s high windows.

Answer 13

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Question 14

The fire, says Paul F. Cole, director of the American Labor Studies Center, “awakened a nation to the dangerous and deplorable conditions that many workers faced on a daily basis.”

Answer 14

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Question 15

In the early 1890s, immigrants from Italy and eastern Europe came to the United States in search of a better life, but instead often found themselves in places such as the Triangle Waist Company, where they worked 12-and-a-half-hour days for $6 a week

Answer 15

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Question 16

They had to supply their own needles, thread, irons and sometimes, even their own sewing machines.

Answer 16

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Question 17

working conditions were so bad that the women didn’t even have access to a bathroom in the building, though the place was filled with highly flammable materials, there was little attention paid to fire prevention.

Answer 17

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Question 18

Discontent over wages and working conditions at Triangle and the city’s other garment factories led tens of thousands of workers to strike in 1909, seeking concessions such as a 20 percent pay hike and a 52-hour week, as well as safer working conditions. Most of the factory owners quickly settled, but Triangle’s owners resisted the demands. When the strike ended in February 1910, workers went back to their jobs without a union agreement, according to the AFL-CIO history.

Answer 18

IQ #2

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Question 19

The building only had a single, flimsy fire escape, leading to an internal courtyard, and there were no fire extinguishers, only pails of water. Workers bent over sewing machines that were fitted onto long rows of wooden tables.

Answer 19

IQ #2

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Question 20

The fabric inside burned swiftly. Terrified workers pushed at the doors and flooded toward the too-small fire escape. Workers crowded at the windows, begging for help. Then, they began to jump. Firefighters who attempted to catch them used netting that fell apart with the impact; their ladders only reached up to the sixth floor.

Answer 20

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Question 21

others jumped down the elevator shaft in an attempt to escape suffocation and death. As onlookers screamed and firefighters battled the blaze, the mangled bodies of the people who jumped piled up on the sidewalk.

Answer 21

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Question 22

It shocked Americans and galvanized public opinion on workplace safety, and the investigation afterward exposed the factory’s unsafe conditions. Though its victims were among the poorest and most invisible laborers, their deaths were publicly mourned and acknowledged.

Answer 22

IQ #3

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Question 23

he fire also sparked effective and groundbreaking legislation in New York and set the stage for future national labor legislation and the New Deal. And it inspired a witness to the tragedy – labor activist Frances Perkins. Her fury over the unsafe conditions and deaths inspired her to push even harder to protect American workers. She later rose to become the first female Secretary of Labor, where she helped craft signature legislation—including the Social Security Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act—devoted to the economic and physical safety of workers.

Answer 23

IQ #3

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Question 24

Day after fire New York times headline was “ More than 140 die as flames sweep through three stories of factory building in Washington place

Answer 24

IQ #1

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Question 25

New York City, under pressure, updated and began to enforce building and fire codes and passed worker safety and compensation laws

Answer 25

IQ #3

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Question 26

The historian Arthur McEvoy suggests: “The fire made clear the ecology of turn-of-the-century workplace and the law’s active role in sustaining it. In so doing, it catalyzed the formation of a modern regulatory state in a key jurisdiction.”

Answer 26

IQ #1

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Question 27

the 10-story building occupied the northwest corner of Green Street and Washington Place.

Answer 27

IQ #1

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Question 28

Beginning around 1900, factory owners and other businessmen had spent $150 million on such loft factories in lower Manhattan. They were designed with safety in mind, crafted of brick or stone, and touted to be fireproof.

Answer 28

IQ #2

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Question 29

Each year, these seamstresses and garment workers produced $50 million worth of clothing. Despite their output, the factory owners paid workers little and constantly scrimped on working conditions, and despite the sturdy, nearly fireproof exteriors, the buildings that the garment workers labored in featured interior rooms that were framed with wood, which, in case of fire, could become tinderboxes.

Answer 29

IQ #2

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Question 30

orkers had recently attempted to do something about the poor conditions at the garment factory. Less than two years earlier, 200 of the workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the majority of whom were Jewish and Italian immigrant laborers, had walked off their jobs over a long list of grievances. This was part of a widely organized series of strikes and walkouts across New York City that involved between 10,000 and 20,000 garment workers. At the peak of the citywide protest, which would come to be known as the Uprising of the Twenty Thousand, 75 percent of those who refused to return to their jobs were young women between the ages of 16 and 25. Almost all were either foreign born or the daughters of first-generation immigrants to the United States. Eighty percent of the garment workers in New York City were women.

Answer 30

IQ #2

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Question 31

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire had caused many in New York to wake up to the horrible working conditions that its unprotected laborers had struggled under for many years. The fire had sparked the consciences of many who had merely given lip service to protecting workers. In a dazzling spectacle of legislative remorse, officials had used their power to create a better future for the previously unprotected workers of New York.

Answer 31

IQ #3

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