46 pages • 1 hour read
David Von DrehleTriangle: The Fire That Changed America
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Inferno”
In Chapter 5, Von Drehle describes the horrifying few minutes near closing time at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company on March 25, 1911. He explains that “management of the Triangle was a family affair,” as factory manager Samuel Bernstein was the brother of owner Max Blanck’s wife, and various other relatives worked in managerial positions as well (116). On the eighth floor, Bernstein was made aware of the fire and initially thought that he could battle it by hand, as he had done with previous small fires. This fire, however, was different. One of the unique innovations of the Triangle was the large wooden bins underneath each of the long cutting tables, designed so that cutters could sweep their scraps directly into them. Tissue paper patterns—edged in steel—dangled from wires above the tables (118). By the end of the day, the bins had several hundred pounds of scraps in them. Von Drehle points out that “the steel trim was the only thing in the vicinity that was not highly flammable” (118). Cotton, he argues, “is even more flammable than paper,” and the fabric, paper, and wood all heaped together and full of oxygen, “amounted to a virtual firebomb” (118-19).
Situated at the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, the Asch Building’s entrance was not in the typical spot, where the two streets meet. Instead, the building had an entrance and stairs midway down both streets. The workers on the eighth floor frantically rushed for the Greene Street exit, but were obstructed by a partition that forced workers to exit one at a time to prevent theft. When a bottleneck formed at this exit, many workers rushed to the Washington Place doors, which were locked. Meanwhile, Dinah Lipschitz, a cousin to Bernstein and the factory timekeeper, attempted to alert the executives on the tenth floor, but when the Triangle telephone operator got the call and then “simply vanished,” Lipschitz was left not knowing if the warning was understood and not knowing if the ninth-floor workers would be alerted (121). Still attempting to battle the fire, Bernstein and another man unfurled the fire hose that was in the stairwell on each floor, but no pressure or water was coming from the tank on the roof. Concluding that “the eighth-floor workers had only moments remaining in which to escape,” Bernstein began physically forcing them through the doors, and realizing that the workers on the ninth floor likely were not aware, he headed up the stairs (123).
By this time, “a scant five minutes, maybe six, after blinking to life,” the fire had consumed the 9,000-square-foot loft of the eighth floor (126). The crowd that had gathered on the street below included a reporter for the United Press, who later described a horrible sound: “[I]t was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone sidewalk” (126). People had begun jumping from the floors above. On the 10th floor, Harris and Blanck finally got word of the fire. Von Drehle argues that “a significant distinction was revealed between the longtime partners” over the next few minutes: while Harris “moved decisively to help save his 10th-floor employees,” Blanck was “nearly paralyzed by fear and indecision” (130). Along with Bernstein, who “had seen and comprehended the inferno” from the beginning, they began getting workers on the roof (131). On the roof, Harris, Blanck, and many workers were rescued when New York University law students in the American Book Building next door went to the adjacent roof with ladders.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Three Minutes”
While it is impossible to say for certain how many people were on the ninth floor that day, Von Drehle suggests that 250 “is a fair estimate” (139). One of those was Yetta Lubitz, a new employee, who was able to escape to the roof just as some of her ninth-floor colleagues were beginning to jump. Throughout Chapter 6, Von Drehle recounts numerous testimonies of survivors, describing the horrifying situation. He argues that “tiny strokes of fortune decided, repeatedly and remorselessly, who would live and who would die” (145). Abe Gordon, for example, a machinist’s belt boy, made his way out a window onto the fire escape but soon realized “it was a very dangerous place to be” (147). He stepped back into the burning building just as the flimsy, overcrowded fire escape collapsed. Even if the fire escape had withstood the flames and overcrowding, it was so poorly designed that it dead-ended far higher than a person could safely jump from.
On the street below, Fire Chief Edward Worth saw that scores of people had gathered at the ninth-floor windows, and fearing that they would start jumping, he ordered the engine and hose to spray a steady stream of water at them to cool them off and prevent jumpers (148). Many fortunate workers from the ninth floor were able to cram on top of each other into the elevator’s two or three return trips up, and a few more workers survived by jumping into the elevator shaft and landing on top of the car. When it became clear that the elevator could make no more trips up and that fire engine ladders could reach no closer to the trapped workers than 30 feet, they were left with the hard choice of dying by falling or by burning. Von Drehle suggests that many of those “had a clear idea of what the flames would do to them” (155). He also suggests that “perhaps there was also an element of self-determination in the decision” (155). When people started jumping, Worth ordered nets to be opened on both sides of the building, but “their effect surely was to encourage more jumpers” (156).
According to Von Drehle, “if the workers on the ninth floor had been warned of the fire at 4:42 P.M. instead of 4:45, every one of them might have been saved” (159). This, among other factors, points to the shocking irresponsibility of the factory’s owners. Fire-safe factories had been a reality for three decades, as standard cotton mills throughout New England were equipped with automatic sprinklers, firewalls, and fireproof doors. Although such technology was available, Von Drehle argues that a fire-prone building carried certain financial advantages for its proprietors. On four separate occasions, between 1902 and 1910, the fire department responded to fires at either the Triangle factory or the Diamond Waist Company, which was also owned by Blanck and Harris. Each of the fires occurred at the end of their busy season, with no workers present, and each time, they collected large insurance settlements. Von Drehle argues that “the right fire at the right time was good for business” (162). Although New York was said to have a prosperous “arson industry” and Blanck and Harris had a strange relationship with fires, it was highly unlikely that the deadly Triangle fire was anything more than a careless accident because not only were Blanck and Harris both present, but Blanck’s children were there that day as well (162-63). When Blanck and Harris applied to increase their fire coverage in 1909, the insurance company demanded that the factory be inspected. The inspector came away with two primary recommendations: that both sets of doors should remain unlocked during working hours and that the workers should go through preparation drills (164). Neither of these recommendations were followed.
Chapters 5-6 Analysis
Chapters 5 and 6 examine the deadly fire that took place on March 25, 1911, near closing time at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. The actual events recounted in Von Drehle’s examination take place over a period of roughly 20 minutes, but the author uses two full chapters to detail them. In doing this, he relies on numerous testimonies of survivors that had been recorded previously. From these testimonies and public records, Von Drehle reconstructs the layout of the factory’s three floors and the way that the fire spread. This is the point when the narrative returns to the moment of crisis at which it opened in the Prologue, and Von Drehle seeks to make the horror of the fire as vivid as possible—not through emotional language but through meticulous factual detail.
In recounting the early minutes of the fire in Chapter 5, Von Drehle emphasizes that numerous factors contributed to the disaster. Taken together, these factors illustrate The Impact of Industrialization on Labor Conditions, as the relentless drive to maximize profits led to a range of unsafe conditions that all culminated in the devastating events of March 25, 1911. In 1900, when developer Joseph J. Asch erected the building, city officials allowed him to hang “a little fire escape in place of the required third stairway” (115). The fire escape—intended to satisfy, at the lowest possible cost, a loophole in the building code rather than to ensure actual safety—was so poorly designed that it caused additional deaths. Additionally, the factory exit on the Greene Street side of the building featured a thin wooden partition, which was “designed in such a way that only one employee could pass through at a time” because they were required to show their handbags to a night watchman to prevent theft (119). The factory exit doors on the Washington Place side of the building not only opened inward but they were locked, not allowing the frantic workers who had bottlenecked there to escape.
As the fire was spreading on the eighth floor, Dinah Lipschitz, the factory timekeeper, attempted to alert the executives on the 10th floor by using a contraption known as a telautograph, which Von Drehle describes as a “very early and failed cousin to the fax machine” (120). No explanation is provided as to why Lipschitz preferred the telautograph to the telephone, but the wasted time waiting for a response from the 10th floor proved fatal because the ninth floor was not warned. Meanwhile, factory manager Samuel Bernstein, whose actions that day were heroic in countless ways, attempted to use the fire hose available on every floor to douse the flames, but no pressure or water was coming from the tank on the roof. One of the innovations employed by the Triangle which made it so unique compared to other factories was that the underneath of the long sewing and cutting tables were turned into wooden bins to dispose of scraps. This practice increased worker efficiency at the cost of placing a “virtual firebomb” at each worker’s feet. Von Drehle argues that it was that very innovation that “had made this blaze so explosive” (138).
Chapter 6 continues to focus on the mistakes that led to the fire and the missteps that took place when panic ensued. The chapter also describes the intensified political organizing after the fire, demonstrating The Relationship Between Tragedy and Social Reform. While worker-led activism in the years before the fire had made real gains in raising wages and reducing hours, the large-scale legislative change necessary to prevent another Triangle fire could not happen until the worker activists were joined by progressives from the upper strata of New York society. This cooperation between workers and bourgeois reformers occurred as a direct result of the fire—which was uniquely powerful as a cultural flashpoint not just for the huge loss of life but for the fact that it occurred in view of New Yorkers from all social classes.
