Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union was one of the largest labor unions in the United States in the early 20th century. Organized for women who were employed in the clothing industry, the ILGWU was instrumental in advancing women’s rights within organized labor. In 1906, women workers in the garment industry of the Lower East Side formed Local 25 of the ILGWU, which played a major role in the industry-wide general strike of 1909.

A pogrom is a violent riot meant to expel a specific religious or ethnic group from a region. In Chapter 4, Von Drehle examines the wave of Jewish Eastern European immigrants that came to America in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. These waves of immigration were spurred by violent pogroms against Jews in the Russian Empire. In 1903, a pogrom took place in Kishinev, in which 49 Jews were killed and another 92 were severely injured. Von Drehle argues that “Kishinev shocked the Jews of Russia—and decent people around the world” (93). In 1906, in the town of Bialystok in Russian-occupied Poland, a pogrom killed 200 people.

A shirtwaist, or simply a waist, was a type of women’s blouse that became a major fashion trend around the turn of the 20th century. They were modeled on men’s shirts and featured a collar, cuffs, and buttons down the front. They were typically worn tucked into a dress or skirt.

A sweatshop is a workshop in which workers are paid very little and required to work long hours in poor conditions. Sweatshops were common in the garment industry around the turn of the 20th century. Von Drehle argues that “sweatshops were generally dim and claustrophobic tenement rooms where independent contractors ‘sweated’ greenhorns—that is, the newest immigrants—by working them more and more hours for less and less pay” (38). At the time, owners of larger factories often contracted work out to independent contractors who set up shops in tiny tenement rooms, with each contractor handling only one link in the chain of production.

Tammany Hall was a political organization in New York that was a dominant force in local and state politics throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Von Drehle argues that “the Hall was as much a part of New York history as Henry Hudson and the Brooklyn Bridge” (21). While Tammany Hall had gained a reputation as a political machine based on corruption, graft, and patronage, under the direction of Charlie Murphy after the Triangle fire, the Hall began to embrace workplace reform and more progressive policies in general.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was founded as the Triangle Waist Company in August of 1900 by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. The first location was on Wooster Street, but it relocated to 27 Washington Place two years later, on the ninth floor of the new 10-story skyscraper known as the Asch Building. In 1909, the factory expanded to include both the eighth floor and the 10th floor. Von Drehle argues that with the move into the skyscraper, Blanck and Harris “helped remake the industry” (46).

The industry-wide general strike of shirtwaist makers in 1909 came to be known as the Uprising of the 20,000. The strike began in November of 1909 and originally consisted of roughly 15,000 workers, but many others soon joined the cause. With the primary demands of higher wages, fewer hours, and union-only hiring, the strike gained steam when wealthy society women joined the cause and began garnering media attention. Many owners of small shops who could not afford stoppages gave in to the demands right away, but owners of large factories held out until March, when they met most of the workers’ demands.