Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

In Chapter 1, Von Drehle examines the period before the Triangle fire through the life of Clara Lemlich, a Ukrainian immigrant who joined the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and led strikes against garment manufacturers. In 1909, Lemlich was followed and beaten by hired thugs for her activity in leading a strike against the Leiserson Company. According to Von Drehle, “busting up strikes was a lucrative sideline for downtown gangsters” and so-called “detective agencies” promised to help factory owners for a price (11). Lemlich, however, became a martyr and a catalyst for the cause following her beating. Von Drehle argues that “what begins with Clara Lemlich’s beating leads to the ravenous flames inside the Triangle Waist Company, which trapped and killed some of the hardiest strikers from the uprising Lemlich worked to inspire” (12). The strikes led by Lemlich, coupled with the deadly Triangle fire, helped to transform the most powerful political machine in America—Tammany Hall.

Von Drehle describes the sweltering heat and the overcrowded conditions of the thousands of tenement buildings in New York City in 1909, which were heavily populated by young immigrant women who worked in the garment district. While “garment strikes had long been a regular feature of a hectic, rapidly growing industry,” the summer of 1909 was different in that the industry had rebounded after several downturns (15). Factory owners, however, were slow to raise wages and improve working conditions. Formed six years earlier, the Women’s Trade Union League helped to organize women wage workers into trade unions. In July, workers walked out of Rosen Bros., one of the largest shirtwaist manufacturers in the city, and despite the strike-breaking attempts by Tammany Hall, refused to return until they got a 20 % raise. According to Von Drehle, “news of this success spread quickly through the garment district” and led to other strikes (16).

Trade unionism was one of the central components of progressivism, a political movement that also supported women’s suffrage and protections for workers and consumers. The backdrop of progressive political activity during the first decade of the 20th century stands in stark contrast to Tammany Hall, the corrupt political machine that had dominated New York for decades. The leader of Tammany at the time was Charlie Murphy, who came to understand that progress was inevitable and that he needed to court “New Immigrants,” who were primarily Eastern European Jews and Italians. In the early fall of 1909, Israel Zangwill’s play, The Melting Pot, struck a chord with these “New Immigrants,” especially the young women who worked in the garment district. According to Von Drehle, it managed to capture “the tensions at the heart of the immigrant experience: old versus new, tradition versus experiment, certain loss versus prospective gain” (33).

In Chapter 2, Von Drehle explains that “the growth of the garment industry had been sudden and wild, like an economic tornado” (39). In the late-18th century, most clothing in America was homemade, but by the mid-19th century, most American clothing was manufactured. The invention of the lock-stitch sewing machine and the cutter’s knife, both of which made mass production of clothing possible, were primary reasons for the reversal. A third and crucial ingredient in the development of the garment industry was cheap and abundant labor supplied by European immigrants (39). Von Drehle notes that “by the turn of the century, more New York immigrants worked in clothing factories than in any other business, and the industry was doubling in size every decade” (39).

In the 1890s, the average workweek for workers in the garment industry was 84 hours, and a large percentage of the work was done by contractors rather than in factories. This era saw the rise of sweatshops, as garment factories farmed out much of their work to contractors, who crammed workers together in tiny tenement rooms, with each sweatshop typically handling only one aspect of the production process. According to Von Drehle, the essence of the sweatshop was not the squalor or the long hours, but rather “the practice of ‘sweating’ workers—that is, squeezing out more work for less pay” (42). Max Blanck started as a garment contractor, eventually forming a partnership with Isaac Harris. The timing of their partnership was perfect for Blanck and Harris to capitalize on the fashion trend of the turn of the century—the shirtwaist, or woman’s blouse (44). Von Drehle describes the shirtwaist as “one of America’s first truly class-shattering fashions,” and one that “symbolized and enabled a wave of women’s liberation” (44).

Blanck and Harris named their enterprise the Triangle Waist Company and by 1902 decided that they needed a larger factory. Their new shop was located on the ninth floor of the Asch Building, a new skyscraper in Washington Square. By 1909, the Triangle had expanded to include all of the top three floors of the building. The obvious advantage of operating garment factories in lofts atop new skyscrapers was size, but the practice also had two major disadvantages. Von Drehle explains that at the time, the fire department could not reach the top floors of such buildings and the fire chief even predicted that a daytime fire “would be accompanied by a terrible loss of life” (48). A second disadvantage was that owners of such modern factories “were no longer insulated from labor strife and strong unions” (48). The fragmentation of the labor force under the sweatshop model meant that workers could not easily organize. By gathering all their workers together under one roof, Blanck and Harris inadvertently created the conditions that made unionization possible. Despite the owners’ attempts to stamp out any union activity, Triangle workers organized with the Women’s Trade Union League and went out on strike in October 1909.