Triangle Fire Essay Notes
• The book essay will be more of a historical argument, ex. “The Triangle Factory fire was a setback for women’s rights.” Use quotes from documents to bolster argument.
• Start with an outline
• Essay will argue in one of these areas: women’s rights, class issues, worker’s rights, or immigration (pick only one)
• Take notes or highlight book (or both)
• Come to class prepared to talk about your argument
• Give a short synopsis of the event and results (2-3 sentences)
• Introduce what you will discuss (ex. The Triangle Fire elicited economic change by bringing more women into the workplace, tightening regulation of business, and lessening the grip of monopolies.) Each of these will then be a topic sentence.
• Last sentence of introductory paragraph is your thesis/argument (ex. The American economy was greatly changed by the Triangle Fire. Or- The Triangle Fire was an important incident in the history of women’s rights.)
• Thesis must be arguable (“Saving Private Ryan examined the Second World War” is not a thesis statement)
• Two to three paragraphs
• Entire paragraph must relate back to topic sentence
• Use short quotes from documents to support argument
• ex. “A Committee on Public Safety was immediately formed to meet the public protest” (p.117).
• “The Triangle Fire, as terrible as it was, succeeded in bringing more women into the workplace.”
• “One of the most positive changes to come out of the Triangle disaster was tighter regulation of business.” (paragraph 3)
• “In the wake of the New York fire monopolies began to lose their grip on the American marketplace.” (paragraph 4)
• Restate thesis and highlight evidence in conclusion