American Experience (1988–…): Season 23, Episode 8 - Triangle Fire - full transcript

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Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.

On April 5, 1911,

400,000 people lined the rain-
drenched sidewalks of New York

as an empty horse-drawn hearse

crept from the dank, narrow
streets of the Lower East Side



toward the skyscrapers towering
over Madison Square.

New Yorkers from all walks of
life had come to pay tribute

to the unidentified victims
of the Triangle fire,

the deadliest workplace accident
in the city's history.

A few weeks earlier, the workers
had been forgotten cogs

in America's immense
industrial machine.

Now, one in ten New Yorkers
were there to claim them

as their own.

Public conscience thought they
had failed these young women.

They had somehow
not protected them.

There was a recognition... "Wait,
these girls can't die in vain."

That was said over and over
and over again,

as if the city had somehow
turned its back on them.

If there weren't
massive funerals,



it would have been very easy
for the city

and the city officials to say,

"Well, this is just... it's
sort of a natural disaster.

"It's a terrible thing,

but there's nothing anyone
can do about it."

If you ask the average American,

"Is it okay for workers
to work in a shop

"where the conditions
are so dangerous

"that it could cost them
their lives

and not have government
intervene?"

most people would say "no"...
There's a line.

The Triangle fire
drew that line.

It burned that line, really,
into the nation's conscience.

Every morning, six days a week,

more than a hundred thousand
people poured out

onto the streets
of the Lower East Side,

headed toward another day's work
in the city's garment factories.

Many were young women
in their teens;

some were girls as young as ten.

They belonged to immigrant
families shoved out of Italy,

Russia, Poland by
natural disaster or persecution.

Their families had chosen
America

for its promise
of a better future.

But even the youngest daughters
had come to understand

that their precarious hold on
the American dream

depended on their willingness
to work.

Father had to take me
to the shop

and not be late
for his own work.

I was eager to begin life
on my own responsibility,

but was also afraid.

"Don't look so frightened,"
he said.

These young girls weren't just

earning money
for their own clothes

or to, you know, to go out to a
dance hall or to Coney Island.

They were earning money
to support the family.

Economic security was the
American dream for many of them.

Making enough money

to be able to put food
on the table,

not worry about making rent
for the week.

As the throng disappeared
into sweatshops

in tenement apartments,

several hundred workers
veered off

toward the Triangle
Shirtwaist factory,

in the heart
of Greenwich Village.

At the base of
the Asch Building,

men and women stepped into
wooden freight elevators

to ascend
to the Triangle factory

on the eighth and ninth floors.

Workers like Michela Marciano,

who managed to send
a few dollars

to her family in Italy
every month.

Or Julia Rosen,
whose 17-year-old son

worked alongside her to help
support three younger children.

Or Catherine Maltese,

whose 13-year-old daughter
wasn't too young to join her

on the factory floor.

Getting a job in the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

was a pretty desired position

because they were working

in a much more modern
factory environment.

High ceilings, big windows.

Compared to the coal stove,
heated, dusty,

hugely crowded sweatshop rooms,
Triangle was a plum.

But even at the Triangle,

sewing machine operators faced
a 14-hour work day

for two dollars a day at most.

And that was before bosses
docked their pay

for the needles, the thread,
the electricity they used.

Sometimes you work
at a big machine

and it's not working right.

One of the needles skips and
you get blamed for mistakes.

The same machines.

The same surroundings.

Shirtwaists, shirtwaists,
and more shirtwaists.

On the tenth floor,

the Triangle owners could feel
their vast machine

shuddering below.

Max Blanck and Isaac Harris
had made Triangle

a million-dollar-a-year
behemoth,

mass-producing the garment
every modern woman must have:

the shirtwaist.

Harris and Blanck were known
as "The Shirtwaist Kings,"

but their empire, as they saw
it, was under constant siege.

After 20 years, the shirtwaist
was getting stale.

Fashion editors began
to showcase colorful dresses

for the modern woman

and turned up their noses
at the bourgeois waist.

No matter how much silk
embroidery Harris added

to their designs,

the Triangle's sales charts
sloped down.

Material and shipping costs
seemed always to be rising.

Profit margins matched
this year's fashion...

"teasingly sheer."

For Max and Isaac,

there was this constant
awareness

that they were, as successful
and as rich as they were,

they were one bad season away
from being broke.

The competition was
enormously fierce...

500 blouse makers on the island
of Manhattan alone.

While they're getting the orders
from the department stores,

there's some small shop
half a mile away

that's willing to beat them
by half.

So it's all about
continuous production

to get as much cloth turned
into a product as possible

at the lowest possible price.

That summer there was
a growing new threat.

All over the city,
garment workers were agitating

for shorter hours, better pay,
safer shops... unions.

Harris and Blanck saw it
in the papers every day

and on the streets below.

Workers were walking off the job
by the tens...

scores...

hundreds.

The partners even suspected
talk of union

on their own shop floor.

Unionization was the single
largest fear

for most of these employers.

They were terrified
that unions would come in

because that would diminish
their authority

over the workplace.

The right to control
their own factory

was an article of faith
for Harris and Blanck

as for hundreds of business
owners just like them.

The Triangle partners were
in a bracing daily battle

for economic survival, and they
meant to control all they could.

Speed mattered more than ever
at the Triangle;

volume kept Harris and Blanck
ahead of their competition.

The men had invested in the most
up-to-date technology,

and it had to pay.

The old pedal pump
sewing machines

made 34 stitches a minute.

With the new electric machines,
the girls were expected to make

3,000 stitches a minute
and no mistakes.

An individual worker would be
assigned a task,

whether it was making collars
or buttonholes,

and that's what they would do.

They are subject to the rhythms
of the machine.

They are the slave
of that machine

and the pace at which it works.

Rubber heels had just
come into use

and you rarely heard the foreman
sneak up behind you, watching.

He wouldn't let you stop.

Not for a drink, the bathroom,
nothing.

Sometimes, in my haste,

I'd get my finger caught and
the needle goes right through.

I'd bind the finger up
with a piece of cotton

and go on working.

Operators were charged for
any mistakes that they made.

For a lot of these young women

whose families depended
on their earnings,

it was very, very stressful.

If they messed up a garment,
and their pay was docked,

they would be left coming home
to tell Mom,

who always got the paycheck,

"The family's gonna be hungry
this week."

Even after the machines powered
down for the day,

the Triangle workers
were subject

to one final management
imperative:

no one left the building
before opening her bag

to the foreman's inspection
at the Greene Street exit.

Max Blanck was kept awake nights

calculating the dollars he might
lose if workers walked out

with shirtwaists tucked
in their bags,

or fabric, or thread.

To ensure that nobody slipped
out un-inspected,

Blanck ordered that the only
other exit, at Washington Place,

be kept locked.

Bosses are under such intense
competitive pressure

that they're prepared to ignore,
under most circumstances,

the grievances of their workers,
to treat them like Stücke,

like animals, like pieces.

And they don't fear anything.

There's no government
intervention.

There's no labor legislation.

There's really very little
sanitary legislation

protecting the health and safety
of workers.

There are no minimum wage laws,
or maximum hour laws.

Nobody's watching.

There was release at the end
of a day's monotonous toil

as the women stepped out
into the long light of summer.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
was in the middle of New York.

If you walked half block,
you were in Washington Square,

lower Fifth Avenue,

the great Greek revival homes
of the affluent.

If you walked to the other side,
you were in Broadway,

where Wanamaker's store was.

Where, within a few blocks,

what was called
"Ladies Mile" was,

with all of the wonderful shops.

This is the Gilded Age.

It's an age of extravagant,
conspicuous consumption.

They can walk up Fifth Avenue
and see limestone mansions

as far as the eye can see.

They can see all around them

that there's all kinds
of wealth.

They were so beautiful,
those hats.

They were so rich.

A woman looked so dressed,
you know, in the back,

with the bustle.

I wanted to grow up to wear
earrings and hats

and high heels.

I liked music.

I liked lectures.

I wanted to learn things;
I wanted to learn everything.

The only thing is the time;
I needed time.

I used to creep up on the roof
of the tenement

and talk out my heart
to the stars and the sky.

Why were we cramped
into the crowded darkness?

Why are we wasting with want?

Where is America?

On the morning
of October 4, 1909,

Harris and Blanck arrived
at the Triangle

to find their worst fear
realized:

their own workers on strike.

They saw this union movement
as a personal attack on them,

an attack on private property,

an attack on the liberty
at the heart

of America's promise
and possibility.

Only 20 years earlier,

Isaac Harris and Max Blanck had
themselves arrived in America,

two young tailors from
the shtetls of Eastern Europe,

poor but ambitious.

As far as they were concerned,

they'd built the
Triangle Waist Company

with their own sweat
and ingenuity.

They'd risked every hard-won
dollar on their dream.

And the gamble
had earned them each

ten-room brownstones uptown

with maids, butlers,
governesses.

This was the story
that was being told

all across Europe about what was
possible in America.

They'd made it.

It was the American Dream,

the symbol of what
it was all about.

They saw their wealth,
their power,

as perfectly legitimate reward

for their exercise
of individual freedom,

and that that was the best thing
for American society,

that was the best thing
for the economy.

The evidence abounded
in New York.

Private wealth was building
the city's skyscrapers,

its parks, museums,
libraries and hospitals.

And the men who made it happen
were celebrated.

These industrial buccaneers
are lionized.

There is this commitment
in American culture

to an extreme kind
of individualism,

that individuals, especially
the owners of private property,

should not be interfered with,

that to interfere with them is
to place inhibiting obstacles

in their path that will
restrain prosperity

and industrial growth.

I think a lot of industrialists
saw themselves

as fairly benevolent,
as providing jobs,

as providing the means
of survival

to hundreds and sometimes
thousands of workers.

And if workers complained
about their wages,

complained about their hours
or the conditions

under which they worked,

they were biting the hand
that fed them.

Progressive reformers
had been shining a light

on the growing inequalities
in America for 20 years...

The crushing poverty,
cramped living spaces

and inhumane working conditions.

But their calls for government
to re-balance the relationship

between employers
and their employees

went largely unheeded.

What elected official
wanted to put the brakes

on the country's remarkable
economic engine?

Picketers at the Triangle

knew that if they wanted their
bosses to treat them fairly,

they'd have to force the change
themselves.

Winning a union in the shop

means establishing a contractual
relationship with the boss

that covers all the workers
in that shop,

with respect to not only
the wages they work for

and the hours that they work,

but the conditions under which
they work

and that their bosses no longer
be allowed to get away

with what they've been
getting away with.

Max Blanck and Isaac Harris
weren't going to let

a bunch of disgruntled
factory girls

tell them how to run
their company.

The Triangle owners used
private detective agencies

to provide replacement workers
and muscle,

bought prostitutes to start
fights with the women

on the picket lines, and paid
off the local police precinct.

Their hired thugs beat
Triangle strikers

and policemen hauled
the picketers into court

if they fought back.

But every day for six weeks,

in the face of physical abuse
and public indifference,

the women took up their places
in front of the Asch Building.

The longer the women
of the Triangle stood fast,

the more workers at other
shirtwaist factories

paid attention.

Week after week the feeling grew

something could be done
at their own shop.

I used to go in the ladies' room

and a few used to follow me and
I was talking to them union.

I knew our girls were
dissatisfied.

I knew other shops were already
on strike.

I knew it only needed someone
to talk to the girls a little

and they would join
the strikers.

They are in America and they're
surrounded by the vocabulary

of equality and fairness

and that whole language
of democracy.

And they begin to expect
something like that

for themselves... real
opportunity where they see none;

a real voice
where they have none.

That autumn, on factory floors
all over New York,

shirtwaist workers
were talking about

ways to secure equitable pay,
reasonable working hours,

a bit of control over the safety
of their shops,

and unions to hold the gains.

At the end of November 1909,

when organizers called a meeting
at New York's Cooper Union,

shirtwaist workers
packed the house.

The aisles overflowed.

The crowd backed up
into the street.

And they were all there to
consider something unthinkable

before the Triangle women
had made their stand:

a proposal to run an
industry-wide strike

against each and every one

of the city's 500 shirtwaist
manufacturers.

It's a pie-in-the-sky idea.

And everyone's trying to talk
them out of it...

The reformers and the
Women's Trade Union League,

the senior men and their union.

The leadership of the
American Federation of Labor,

Samuel Gompers himself,

is begging them not to do
this crazy thing.

"None of your families
have enough money

"to sustain a strike.

"Your younger siblings
could starve.

You don't want to do this."

While union leaders cautioned
against action,

a 22-year-old garment worker
stepped uninvited to the podium.

Everyone at the meeting knew
of Clara Lemlich.

Just a few weeks earlier,
when she'd organized a strike

at the factory where she worked,

Lemlich had been beaten
by the owners' hired men.

She could still feel the sting
of six broken ribs.

I want to say a few words.

I have listened to all
the speakers.

I have no more patience
for talk.

I move that we go
on a general strike.

And the room goes crazy.

There's almost no point
in taking a vote, you know.

It's like it's unanimous.

She's carried the day.

They believed they were going
to make history.

The next morning,
workers in shirtwaist factories

across the city awaited some
kind of signal.

We all sat at the machines

with our hats and coats beside
us, ready to leave.

And there was whispering
and talking softly

all around the room
among the machines.

"Shall we wait like this?"

"Who will get up first?"

I started to get up.

And at just the same minute,
all...

we all got up together,
in one second.

We all stood up
and all walked out together.

They had calmly put down
their scissors and walked away

from the only thing standing
between them and starvation

and between their families
and starvation.

The women of the Triangle
had spurred

what was then the largest
single work stoppage

in the city's history.

10,000;20,000...

This is more than anyone of us
dared to dream of or hope for.

This is not a strike;
this is an uprising.

Within 48 hours,

70 of the smallest and most
vulnerable shirtwaist factories

gave in to their
workers' demands.

They were union-only shops now.

The Triangle bosses were
contemptuous of the owners

who gave up without a fight.

Harris and Blanck organized
a manufacturers association

to stand united
against the rabble-rousers.

And they issued an edict:
"No surrender."

The prostitutes are out there,
they're beating them;

the police are watching,
they're doing nothing.

And it wasn't just women.

The prostitutes' pimps
would jump in.

Triangle would hire ex-prize
fighters and known toughs.

You'd have people being sent off
to the hospital.

Ribs were being broken,
heads were being cracked.

And there wasn't
a lot of sympathy.

When one girl was dragged
into court

with her head in bloody bandages

and the policeman said
she'd attacked him,

the magistrate believed it
and said,

"You are on strike
against God and nature."

Policemen ran strikers
into court every day,

where judges fined the women,
put them in jail,

or shipped them to the workhouse
on Blackwell's Island.

When 10,000 workers marched
on City Hall

to protest police brutality,
the mayor waved them off.

The establishment was against
labor unions;

the police were against
labor unions;

City Hall was against
labor unions.

Still, the women went back
to their picket lines

day after day after day.

A handful of progressive
reformers were inspired

to join the pickets,

but for nearly a month most of
the city and much of the press

paid little attention.

At this low moment
in the strike,

when they're running out
of money,

the most amazing thing happens.

A woman named Anne Morgan
decides to take up their cause.

Anne Morgan was the daughter
of J. Pierpont Morgan,

the most powerful financier

probably in the history
of the world.

Here was the face
of American capitalism, Morgan,

and the idea that his daughter
was taking up the cause

in a public way
of these radical,

often socialist,
trade unionist strikers,

walking picket lines in New York
was shocking and exciting.

I mean, the newspapers
ate it up.

It was great copy.

They really did believe that
the city needed to be reformed

and that it was unacceptable
to be beating these young girls.

And they also believed that they
were allies in this campaign

for women's suffrage,
which was picking up steam.

So, the "mink brigade,"
so-called "mink brigade,"

start walking the picket lines,
and it works.

The society ladies' support kept
the strike on the front pages.

Millionaire socialite
Alva Vanderbilt Belmont

and Anne Morgan took over
a committee

to challenge police brutality

and to enlist picketers
from the uptown crowd.

If you have someone
on the social register

walking a picket line,

police are going to be a little
bit more careful

and even private police are
gonna be a little more careful

about who they club.

By the middle of December,

Max Blanck and Isaac Harris
could feel

things turning against them.

The mainstream press was now
writing sympathetic stories

about the striking women;

they had suddenly become
"those brave girls."

With Christmas approaching

and the strikers gaining
public support,

Harris and Blanck decided
it was time

to lead their fellow
factory owners

toward the negotiating table.

On the Triangle owners'
recommendation,

the manufacturers association
agreed to higher wages

and shorter hours

if the strikers would drop their
demand for union-only shops.

Strike leaders refused.

Their hard line didn't sit well
with Miss Morgan.

She was all for
individual workers

getting better treatment,

but she drew the line at
fomenting social upheaval.

"I am heartily in favor
of these strikers,"

Anne Morgan told the press,

"but these fanatical doctrines
are all the more dangerous

"because they tend to tear down
all the good

in our present social state."

She abruptly resigned
from the strike committee.

She thought they were really
trying to turn this

into a socialist cause.

And she would have none of it.

This wasn't about changing
the world.

Anne Morgan liked most
of the world in which she lived.

Despite having lost
a powerful public advocate,

the shirtwaist workers refused
to soften their demands.

The busy season was
right around the corner

and the strikers were betting
that owners would want

all the experienced hands
they could get.

One by one, hundreds
of shirtwaist manufacturers

accepted their workers' demands
for a union.

And by the middle of February,
thousands had returned

to union-only shops.

The Triangle strikers
weren't so fortunate.

When they finally went
back on the job,

they had won concessions
on wages and hours,

but Harris and Blanck had forced
them to give up the big issue.

Triangle workers still lacked
real power to improve

the worst conditions
on the factory floor.

There would be no union
in the Asch Building.

March 25, 1911 was a Saturday,

a short, eight-hour day
at the Triangle.

As the clock inched
toward the end of the shift,

thoughts drifted toward escape.

A long night of freedom
beckoned, and no work on Sunday.

Sometimes we go to Coney Island,

where there are good
dancing places.

I'm very fond of dancing.

Many of the young men like
to talk to me,

but I don't go out
with any except Henry.

Lately he has been urging me
more and more to get married.

But I think I'll wait.

On the streets below, New
Yorkers were already enjoying

a leisurely Saturday: bicycling,
motoring, strolling the avenues,

window-shopping on Broadway.

Washington Square was the center
of that downtown community,

so the park was packed
with people enjoying the day.

And suddenly there's smoke
rising over this tower

a half a block away.

Minutes earlier, a dropped
cigarette had started a fire

on the eighth floor
of the Asch Building.

Triangle workers dashed
for the stairs, the elevators

and the fire escape.

Max Blanck and Isaac Harris,
on ten,

warned by phone from below,
made their way to the roof,

where they scrambled across
to the building next door.

In the panic, no one alerted
the 200 sewing machine operators

on the ninth floor.

I turned to one of the girls,
who was putting on her hat,

and said, "Where does
that smoke come from?"

Before I could move,

everybody in the shop started
to scream and holler.

Startled machine operators
scanned the floor

for friends and family
and for the fastest way out.

The everyday exit,
the Greene Street stairway,

was already blocked
by smoke and fire.

Some women fled out a window
and onto the fire escape

to the back alley.

Others ran toward two
tiny passenger elevators

that led to Washington Place.

The first time the elevator
came up, the girls rushed in,

and it was crowded
in a half-second.

The elevator driver struggled
with the door

and finally closed it.

I was left with those
who didn't make the first trip.

Sewing machine operators pushed
their way down narrow aisles

clogged with wicker baskets,
loose fabric,

their own co-workers.

I was throwing them
out of the way.

I was pushing them down.

I was only looking out
for my own life.

A young lady began to pull me
in the back of my dress.

I kicked her with my foot and I
don't know what became of her.

I jumped over two lines of
machines away from the flames.

I looked and I saw
an old Italian woman.

She couldn't jump
over the machines.

Panic rose when the women inside

heard the overburdened fire
escape pull from its masonry,

heard the cries
of their fellow workers

tumbling off
the twisting structure.

As the smoke grew thicker,
some were drawn

toward the light of windows
overlooking Washington Square.

People were starting to gather
at the Asch Building now:

passersby and picnickers,

students from nearby
New York University

and a young reporter
from the United Press.

There was a living picture

in each window,

four girls waving their arms.

"Call the firemen!"
they screamed.

"Get a ladder!"

We heard a fire engine
in the distance.

"Here they come!" we yelled.

"Stay there!"

The fire was spreading
faster now,

feeding itself on piles of
shirtwaists, wooden tables,

even the fabric dust
that hung in the air.

The only precaution
the Triangle owners had taken

against this sort of disaster...
A dozen red pails of water...

Sat impotent in the corners.

The workers who remained inside

pushed toward the Washington
Place passenger elevator.

They knew time was running out.

This was probably the last run.

The elevator came up,

and I was swept into the car
by the crowd behind me.

The last thing I remember seeing was my
sister Marie...

enveloped in flames.

As the elevators descended,

workers started jumping
into the elevator shaft,

first trying to slide down the
cable or ride the top of the car

but then... then the crowd
behind these women

in the open elevator doorways

are pushing, pushing to escape
from the flames.

And now people are being pushed,

falling into
that elevator shaft.

There was one final hope for
the trapped Triangle workers...

Opening the locked door to
the Washington Place stairway.

But no one had the key.

I saw Bernstein trying
to open the door.

He couldn't open it.

And then I saw Margaret
bending down on her knees.

The trail of her dress and the
ends of her hair began to burn.

And then came a big smoke
and I couldn't see.

I just knew it was Margaret.

People were screaming about
their children, anything else.

I noticed Bernstein going
like a wildcat on the windows.

Then I saw the flames
covering him.

Smoke was coming up
all around us.

I couldn't see anything else.

I felt a draft.

I wanted to make my way
over to where it came from.

I wanted to open the window.

It had been less than five
minutes since the first alarm,

but more than a thousand people

had crowded around
the Asch Building.

They watched as the firemen
raised their ladders

to their full extension.

They barely reached
the sixth floor,

30 feet shy
of the trapped Triangle workers.

People began to holler,

"Raise the ladders!
Raise the ladders!"

But we had the ladders up.

One girl climbed
onto the window sash.

Those behind her tried
to hold her back,

and she dropped into space.

I saw groups of women
embracing each other

and leaping to the sidewalk.

The firemen were helpless.

The nets were ripped
from their hands.

Many stooped and picked up
the nets again

with their hands bleeding.

The last workers were trapped
against the blackened windows,

burning to death
before our very eyes.

The glass they were
pressed against shattered.

Down came the bodies
in a shower...

Burning, smoking,
flaming bodies,

with disheveled hair
trailing upward.

The bodies lay there on the
sidewalk three or four high,

burning, and we had to play
the hoses on them.

I looked upon the heap
of dead bodies

and I remembered these girls
were the shirtwaist makers.

I remembered their great strike
of last year.

The crowd knew the Triangle.

They knew the cause
of these workers.

And here, now, of all places,

this same factory
had gone up in flames

and hundreds of these workers
who had said

that the conditions
were not safe,

that the fate of workers
was perilous in New York.

The justice
of the strikers' cause

had been underlined in blood
on these sidewalks.

30 minutes after
the initial call,

the New York City
Fire Department

had the blaze at the Triangle
under control.

Three hours later,

firemen began lowering bodies
by block and tackle.

New York City policemen...
Some of them the same men

who had beaten
the picketing workers...

Leaned out of windows
on each floor

to make sure the bodies
didn't bang

against the side of building

as they descended from
the Triangle Waist Company

for the final time.

Others cataloged

the personal belongings
strewn on the sidewalks:

a broken hair comb;

a patent leather Oxford with
the laces still tied in a knot;

a rosary;

a fur-trimmed hat
with a crushed red rose.

Even the most hardened
policemen buckled.

The crew had to be changed
almost every hour.

When the last body was
removed just after midnight,

the total number of dead
stood at 145.

53 had jumped or fallen
from the windows.

19 fell in the elevator shaft.

More than 20 tumbled
off the fire escape.

And at least 50 burned to death
on the factory floor.

All but 23 of the dead
were women,

nearly half of them teenagers.

One jumper had
miraculously survived.

She lay near death
in St. Vincent's Hospital.

The morning after the fire,

friends and relatives of
the Triangle workers gathered

outside a temporary morgue
on the East River,

where the bodies were lined up
for identification,

each under white cloth, heads
pillowed up for viewing.

People were invited to come in
and try to identify children,

or wives, or husbands,
or boyfriends, or daughters,

or girlfriends who'd not
come home all night.

I had to get Mary identified;

she was burned
beyond recognition.

The dentist opened her mouth
and recognized his work.

It was Mama's hair.

I braided it for her.

I know... I know.

I've been to the morgue
three times

and looked over
20 charred bodies.

None of them can I recognize
as my wife.

The fire claimed its final
victim on March 30, 1911,

when the surviving jumper died.

In death, she was
no longer anonymous.

She was Sarah Kupla,

a 16-year-old sewing machine
operator

mourned by her family
in the Bronx.

Newspapers, public officials,
the wider world

had begun to attach names

to these Triangle workers
by then...

Rosie Bassino
and her sister Irene,

Max Lehrer and his brother Sam,

Mary Goldstein,
the Saracino sisters,

Michela Marciano, who had
survived an eruption

of Mount Vesuvius before
emigrating to America.

Rose Manofsky,
whose little sister had lost

her sole source of support.

And Salvatore Maltese,
who had buried

every female in his household:

his wife, Catherine,
his 20-year-old daughter Lucia

and his daughter Rosaria,
who was, at 14,

the fire's youngest victim.

Families of the victims took
some small measure of comfort

from a sympathetic public.

New Yorkers raised money
to pay for burials,

to support dependents
left behind,

or to replace the weekly
cash envelopes

Triangle workers had sent
to their families in Europe.

Survivors also hoped for some
small measure of justice

when Isaac Harris and Max Blanck
were brought up

on charges of manslaughter

and were shattered
when the two men were acquitted.

The state failed to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt

that the two men knew
the exit door was locked

at the time of the fire.

"The Shirtwaist Kings" would
take their insurance settlement

and fade into obscurity.

The Triangle factory

and the memory of the women
who worked there would not.

People were realizing
that they had tolerated

a kind of set of employment
and other industrial practices

that they should never
have tolerated.

What people had been saying,

that you can't have unregulated
industrialization,

that there are things
that have to be managed

not by the market
but by public policy...

This now rang true in a way
that it didn't the day before.

It opens wide a system
that was for so long seen

as a private system between
a worker and an owner.

Essentially it says
at that point

that it's no longer private.

It can never be private again.

There are 146 women
and men who died

because that was
a private system.

That doesn't work.

In the aftermath
of the Triangle fire,

an enraged public compelled
government to act.

The New York State Legislature

funded a factory
safety commission

which held months of hearings,

collected testimony from
hundreds of owners and workers

and inspected
nearly 2,000 factories.

Within two years, the
commission's shocking findings

spurred the passage
of more than 30 new laws.

They set standards for minimum
wages, maximum hours

and workplace conditions,

gave teeth to child labor laws

and addressed each and every
failure at the Triangle factory.

And New York does
become a model,

clearly inspired
by these young women.

I think Sam Gompers
said it best...

That rarely do you get
an opportunity

for such legislative reform.

But women had to burn first
in order for this to happen.

I dreamed about a fire at night.

And I would dream that I was
falling out of the window,

screaming.

I remember hollering
to my mother in the dark...

"Mama, I just jumped
out of the window."

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