Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way)

by Rachel Slade

No strike would shape the labor movement in the following decades more than the one following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, which took the lives of 146 young women and men. The ten-story building was around the corner from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Unable to escape the intense heat of the fast-moving conflagration, the stitchers and machinists died on the shop floor, piled up against blocked exits, in the elevator, and some on the concrete below when they leapt from windows eight to ten stories above to avoid the flames. An investigation later revealed that the factory doors had been illegally locked to prevent people from coming in and going out (possibly to prevent union organizers from talking to workers). It was also found that the fire escapes were underbuilt, the New York City fire truck ladders were too short to service most of the city’s buildings, and no one had bothered to train staff about fire safety.