2Anum Khoja
The Triangle Factory Fire
* What caused the loss of 146 lives?
* The lives were lost through a fire that was rapidly spreading through the 8th, 9th , and 10th floors of the Triangle Waist Company garment factory.
* The reason the workers were not able to escape was due to the fact that the factory only had one fire escape and it had collapsed during the rescue effort.
* Long tables and bulky machines also trapped many of the victims.
* About the victims:
* The victims were mainly young women who had recently arrived from Europe; for the most part, recent Italian and European Jewish immigrants. Some of them were as young as 14 years old.
* About the owners:
* There were two owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, one of them was Isaac Harris and the other was Max Blanck, they were also known as, “the shirtwaist kings.”
* They were tried for manslaughter on the grounds that they knew the doors of the 9th floor were locked, but were acquitted in 1914.
* Reforms introduced into law as a result:
* The United Association of Casualty Inspectors was founded as a direct response of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
* Factories were required to install sprinkler systems as a result
* Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law of October 1911, which combined six agencies to form an efficient fire commission
* Work Citied:
* http://history1900s.about.com/od/1910s/p/trianglefire.htm
* http://www.osha.gov/oas/trianglefactoryfire.html
* http://www.csun.edu/~ghy7463/mw2.html
* http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/story/introduction.html