# Lessons of Triangle Shirtwaist Fire May Be Lost 100 Years Later



## mark handler (Mar 25, 2011)

The Lessons of Triangle Shirtwaist Fire May Be Lost 100 Years Later

Mar 25, 2011 – 9:46 AM

Screams of "Don't jump!" echoed through the canyons of tall buildings. More than 50 bodies littered the streets surrounding 23 Washington Place, so many that New York City's firetrucks were unable to get close enough to raise their ladders. Even if they had, the ladders from nearby Company 20 were too short to reach the eighth, ninth or 10th floors of the burning Triangle Shirtwaist Co. factory.

New York Fire Department reports say the flames, which were probably sparked by a cigarette tossed into a pile of cotton scraps on the eighth floor, rapidly spread to the floors above. The maelstrom of fire was knocked down in 18 minutes -- brief, but long enough to snuff out the lives of 146 workers who were just minutes from heading home from their 52-hour workweek that sunny Saturday afternoon on March 25, 1911.

The victims of that inferno 100 years ago today were almost all new immigrants, mostly women and girls -- Italians, Russians, Hungarians and Germans. Few spoke English.

The youngest victim was only 11, according to the death reports. Most were in their teens, and a few in their early 20s. There were 500 seamstresses and tailors working in the factory. Many on the eighth and tenth floors escaped. Few on the ninth floor had much chance of surviving.

Some stood on the narrow window ledges, alone or clutching friends, waiting for rescue that never came, then jumped or lost their balance and fell to their deaths. The height of the fall was so great that the jumpers tore through the safety nets that a circle of firefighters were frantically moving up and down the street to catch them.

The 146 lives lost in the fire ignited a passion for worker safety laws and indirectly led to the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Yet a century later, the laws that could have saved lives had they been in place on March 25, 1911, are being threatened by budget cuts proposed by a Republican-controlled Congress.

The Lessons From the Tragedy

Many of the deaths from the 1911 fire were preventable.

A flimsy iron fire escape quickly gave way under the weight of the first trying to flee. The single elevator was immobilized by dozens of bodies falling into the shaft as some tried to shimmy down the grease-covered cables.

But the main route to living another day, the exit doors, were blocked by boxes of trash and fabric scrap, or locked by the bosses to prevent workers from stealing the fancy blouses with puffed sleeves and tight bodices that the Triangle Shirtwaist sweatshop produced by the thousands

After the tragedy, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union led a parade of more than 100,000 mourners through the streets of lower Manhattan, and politicians realized that they'd better pay attention to what just happened in their town.

The cry "This shall never happen again" echoed through city halls and state capitols. Officials in many major U.S. cities looked around and found identically dangerous conditions in their factories. Workers in their communities faced the same risk.

Whether it was shame, guilt or genuine concern for the safety of the American worker, politicians promised to do better. First in New York City and then in Albany, lawmakers, ignoring strident objections by the business community, forced through the country's first and strongest worker safety protection laws.

Massachusetts, New Jersey and Illinois soon passed similar safeguards. Fifteen other states tried to do the same, but intense lobbying by industry either blocked the attempts or watered down the legislation to the point of uselessness.

But the fire also produced a champion for a national system of worker safety regulations.

Dedicated to Protecting Workers

The afternoon of the fire, a young social worker named Frances Perkins was having tea with a friend in Greenwich Village when she heard clanging firetruck bells and screams. As she raced toward the noise, she saw black smoke bellowing from the building and watched as the seamstresses leaped or fell to the ground.

Twenty-two years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Perkins as U.S. secretary of labor, recalled Hilda Solis, who now holds that job.

Perkins never forgot the fire and the trapped workers, and she did much during her 12 years on the job, including creating what would become the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Solis said in recent speeches and op-ed pieces.

Worker safety advocates cite the painful irony that, precisely 100 years to the month after the fire, the House of Representatives has passed a budget bill that would slash nearly $100 million -- about 20 percent -- from OSHA's current budget. About 40 percent of those cuts will be to the agency's enforcement and safety inspectors -- those on the front line of protecting workers.

"Lives will be lost because of these proposed cuts. They're devastating," Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, told AOL News on Thursday.

"Since its founding, OSHA has been underfunded and understaffed. They currently have enough inspectors to inspect every workplace just once every 143 years. The proposed cuts will cut OSHA's effectiveness even more," he added.

OSHA administrator David Michaels says the House's cutback "would really have a devastating effect on all of our activities."

David Von Drehle wrote what many consider the definitive book on the tragedy in 1911, "Triangle: The Fire that Changed America." He said in the book that history can run backward, and that even much-needed reforms like worker safety gains can be lost again.

"Many of the initial post-Triangle reforms were strenuously opposed by conservative businessmen ... who were soon back in the saddle and able to halt, hamstring or reverse liberal initiatives," he wrote.

The recent GOP sweep has many believing the same thing is happening again.

No Surprise That OSHA Was a Target

When the Republicans swept back into power in the House in January, Rep. Darrell Issa, the newly appointed chairman of the House Government Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, told major industries, lobbyists, trade associations and companies large and small that, as head of the congressional watchdog committee, he'd appreciate their views on what government regulations they didn't like and what he should change.

It surprised no one that the Environmental Protection Agency and OSHA were the favorite targets of the hundreds letters that were hand-carried or express-mailed to him.

The California Republican insists that these changes that big business wants will save jobs, but he hasn't explained how to the satisfaction of even some in his own party. Republicans budget cutters say that environmental regulation is harmful to the economy and that OSHA's worker safety actions are unnecessary and detrimental to businesses large and small.

Those involved with worker safety cringe.

"With conservatives in Congress decrying the supposedly "job-killing" effects of OSHA protections, we could be on our way to becoming a First World economy with Third World working conditions," said Tom O'Connor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a federation of local and state committees or coalitions on occupational safety and health.

The U.S. has made progress in worker protection, but, he quickly added, it is 29th out of 30 industrialized nations when it comes to safety and health protection for workers, managing to beat out only Turkey.

"Crippling budget cuts like these can only come from lawmakers who are willing to throw hardworking Americans under the bus once they've extracted a vote," Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for health and environment with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told AOL News.

Her organization is one of the nation's largest environmental action groups, but Sass's concern for worker safety came from her grandmother, Clara Weinstein, a seamstress who was working the day of the fire in another Garment District sweatshop neighboring the Triangle factory building.

Clara was only a young teenager when she left her parents behind in Russia to work in New York City's garment factories and send money home -- "a story repeated every day by immigrant workers, many of them teenagers like my grandmother was," Sass said.

Her grandmother never went to college, but she spoke and read in three languages -- English, Russian and Yiddish -- and she knew wrong from right, Sass recalled. "She always told me she was a dressmaker, but in fact she was an unskilled piece worker on an assembly line in a loud, dusty and very dangerous factory."

Her grandmother was spared death from fire, but not from the factory conditions that destroyed her lungs, her sight, her hearing, and her back, the scientist said.

The article continues LINKED BELOW

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/25/the-lessons-of-triangle-shirtwaist-fire-may-be-lost-100-years-la/


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## Coug Dad (Mar 25, 2011)

Not to let a fact get in the way of a good story, OSHA was not established until 1970 under Richard Nixon.  NFPA, however, did publish the first version of what was to become NFPA 101 the Life Safety Code in 1912 in response to the Triangle fire.


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## Bryan Holland (Mar 25, 2011)

The examples I like to use to show how far we have NOT come is the 1903 Chicago Iroquois Theater Fire where 600+ people died, mostly from a lack of means of egress and the 2003 Rhode Island Station Nightclub Fire where 100+ people died for mostly the same reason.

100 years between the two incidents and the same mistakes were made.  Too many people in an assembly, non-fire-rated-resistant construction and finishes, poor means of egress…

It’s embarrassing….


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## cda (Mar 25, 2011)

http://www.nfpa.org/publicJournalDetail.asp?categoryID=2157&itemID=50572&src=NFPAJournal&cookie%5Ftest=1


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## conarb (Mar 25, 2011)

What gets me about the aforementioned Rhode Island Station Nightclub fire is that (if I remember correctly) all deaths were caused by burning styrofoam, now in the interest of energy efficiency we are insulating homes with the same stuff that killed all those people, code requires either an intumescent coating or fire rated sheetrock be installed over it, but a builder from Houston recently showed pictures of a new $6 million home he was building with styrofoam insulation bragging about how "green" it was, he knows nothing about fireproofing it and apparently the Houston inspectors don't either (he ridiculed my posting of the ES Report requiring it).


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## mark handler (Mar 25, 2011)

conarb said:
			
		

> What gets me about the aforementioned Rhode Island Station Nightclub fire is that (if I remember correctly) all deaths were caused by burning styrofoam, now in the interest of energy efficiency we are insulating homes with the same stuff that killed all those people, code requires either an intumescent coating or fire rated sheetrock be installed over it, but a builder from Houston recently showed pictures of a new $6 million home he was building with styrofoam insulation bragging about how "green" it was, he knows nothing about fireproofing it and apparently the Houston inspectors don't either (he ridiculed my posting of the ES Report requiring it).


It was polyurethane sound insulation foam, not styrofoam.

Not even close.

It's like saying a car is a bike.


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## Coug Dad (Mar 25, 2011)

The Iriquios fire was complicated by the Walenda's wire extending through the proscenium that prevented the fire curtain from dropping.  It is my understanding that the Station had the required number of exits.  The Coconut Grove, now there was an example of inadequate egress.  Our Lady of Angels was open stairs and interior finish.  History is a good teacher only if you get it right.


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## mark handler (Mar 25, 2011)

Coug Dad said:
			
		

> History is a good teacher only if you get it right.


Yes, but only if you get it right.

to associate styrofoan to the Station Nightclub fire is getting it wrong

The proper use of foam products is getting it right.


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## FM William Burns (Mar 25, 2011)

In the recent example, my assessment of getting it right would have been "recognition". We all make errors and miss things at times but as I've mentioned years back; the material was in the drum alcove and on the walls during previous inspections by both building and fire officials. The lesson: when in doubt ask and then verify.


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## Frank (Mar 25, 2011)

Bryan Holland said:
			
		

> The examples I like to use to show how far we have NOT come is the 1903 Chicago Iroquois Theater Fire where 600+ people died, mostly from a lack of means of egress and the 2003 Rhode Island Station Nightclub Fire where 100+ people died for mostly the same reason.100 years between the two incidents and the same mistakes were made.  Too many people in an assembly, non-fire-rated-resistant construction and finishes, poor means of egress…
> 
> It’s embarrassing….


Fire resistant construction does not protect lives--it creates an oven.

Both Triangle Shirtwaist and the Iroquios Theater Buildings were of "fireproof" construction corresponding to the current Type 1 construction.  Both buildings survived the fires and returned to service within a year.  In both cases it was the contents and decorations that burned-not the buildng structure.

Exit issues were present in all 3 cases although The Station exits probably met code.

In all 3 cases flammable contents and rapid fire spread with a lack of sprinkler protection lead to the deaths.


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## FM William Burns (Mar 25, 2011)

That's true and based on reports I've read (the Station's exits were in compliance).


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## Frank (Mar 25, 2011)

And on the Iroquois Theater Fire and the Station fire non fire retardant drapes and soundproofing contributed heavily to the rapid fire development--

I faced that one this morning with a small Improv theater, 100-130 occ load, that is hanging drapes and curtains that it does not have a fire resistance certificate for and they wonder why we question them.  The material looks like it might look like the right stuff, but so did the soundproofing at the Station look like the right stuff.


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## FM William Burns (Mar 25, 2011)

And when I don't have time to verify (political pressure) .......I'll do a rudiment 705 test in the parking lot with a sample of what I question    If that proves like suspected, it's removed until the neccessary documentation is substantiated on the product manufacturer's product. Stand your ground


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## conarb (Mar 25, 2011)

Mark:

Where did you get your information that it was polyurethane rather than  polystyrene?  All I know is both are deadly in the event of a fire and  shouldn't be used in construction, for one thing the environmentalists  are trying their best to ban it, not for it's deadly properties but  becasue of the vast amount in our landfills and the Pacific Gyre twice  the size of Texas, our garbage company won't even take it, they recently sent us a letter telling us to take clean styrofoam packing to shipping stores and they will reuse it, but nothing dirty like food on it.



			
				Green Living Tips said:
			
		

> Styrofoam is a trademark of the Dow company, but the material itself  is called polystyrene. Like so many other plastics, it's all around us -  very commonly used in packing material as peanuts or expanded foam, in  food trays and a wide variety of other products - even explosives such  as napalm and hydrogen bombs! The bad news is (aside from its use in WMD); polystyrene is  manufactured from petroleum. It's highly flammable and a chemical called  benzene, which is a known human carcinogen, is used in its production.
> 
> *Polystyrene in the environment*
> 
> ...


I've seen pictures of the installation of the open cell foam insulation, especially Icynene, the most popular, after blowing it they shave off about as much as they leave, that goes straight to the dump to last forever, it's so toxic that the installers have to wear special protective gear and other workmen can't be near it. It contains isocyanates, here is a statement from my industrial hygienist:



> Dick, I am most definitely concerned about isocyanates.  I went to a "green  building" expo, and they were hyping that Isocene stuff all over the place.   There are isocyanate badges that should detect as low at 1 ppb isocyanate, and I  tried them in a couple of homes where we suspected problems from caulk.  The  badges were negative in those cases.  I haven't had the chance to test any homes  with Isocene insulation.  I know the manufacturer says there is no off gassing  after it cures, but I don't really believe that claim.  Not long ago, I was  being told the same thing about formaldehyde resin.
> 
> I am especially concerned about the spray foam that is now sold for  homeowner use.  Tradesmen may know how to protect themselves, but guys doing  projects around the house could cause some real problems for themselves and  their families.
> 
> Linda ¹


¹ http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/218/1/Recycling-styrofoam.html


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## mark handler (Mar 26, 2011)

conarb said:
			
		

> Mark:Where did you get your information that it was polyurethane rather than  polystyrene?


Reading real info

When I post opinions, I say they are opinions

I don't put them out as facts

RECONSTRUCTING THE STATION NIGHTCLUB FIRE – MATERIALS TESTING AND SMALL-SCALE EXPERIMENTS

http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire07/PDF/f07062.pdf


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## GHRoberts (Mar 26, 2011)

"Worker safety advocates cite the painful irony that, precisely 100 years to the month after the fire, the House of Representatives has passed a budget bill that would slash nearly $100 million -- about 20 percent -- from OSHA's current budget. About 40 percent of those cuts will be to the agency's enforcement and safety inspectors -- those on the front line of protecting workers."

Regardless of if OSHA is the front line of protecting workers or not ...

The US can no longer spend what it is spending. Cuts will be made in the future and all cuts will lead to the lose of life - both claimed and actual. A fact of life is that people die.


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## FM William Burns (Mar 26, 2011)

Full report here: (large file)

http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire05/PDF/f05032.pdf


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## peach (Mar 27, 2011)

Back to the OP... the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire provides us background on why we have egress distances to a protected exit, why locking/latching devices are important (and need to be inspected frequently), why sprinklers are important and why we limit the height of certain occupancies.

That's why routine fire inspections are required. Make sure the sprinkler system is maintained, make sure that the exits are clearly marked and NOT locked, make sure that interior finishes are what they are supposed to be, and make sure that exit doors swing in the direction of egress (some of which, I believe, contributed to the loss of life in RI).


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