Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Research Paper

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Colin Messke Soden US History in A Global Context Section 1 October 4th, 2015 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: How A Tragedy Can Be Educational The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire is among the worst workplace and labor disasters not only this country has seen but also the world. On the 25th day of March, 1911, fire started on the eighth floor of Asch Building, the floor itself the first of three floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Soon panic started, as two hundred and thirty workers on the eighth floor tried to escape the inevitable inferno that would soon engulf the building. The total amount of workers differed anywhere from seven hundred to one thousand men and women depending on who was asked , One hundred and forty three workers…show more content…
After their loved ones died, all they hoped for was for those who harmed would receive the appropriate punishment. Sadly, this was not the case. The District’s Attorney office found enough evidence to charge Blanck and Harris, the owners of the factory, with first and second degree manslaughter. However, the jury did not find enough to believe that the owners had purposely locked the doors to restrain the workers, and they were acquitted. This wasn’t the first time it had happened to the owners however, as one newspaper found out. There had been half a dozen fires in their establishment before “the great holocaust”. Later, Max Blanck would be arrested on a similar charge for another incident. He was fined only twenty dollars, a fine so low that it weakened the morale of the survivors and the families of the dead, and supported the manufacturers, who now were able to see their workers in the least valuable and respectful of lights. To them, their workers are “rats”, forgotten and holding of no value. To find out that those who had harmed and in some way led to the death of your family members can only be truly and tragically heartbreaking. We can learn from this that the law was in favor of those who had been charged with a crime, finding that the burden of proof is on who indict the…show more content…
But to prevent it from happening again, we must learn from it. I hope that this paper has done that, and that a disaster of this magnitude never happen again. Truly however, in the wake of the the fire, new regulations were put in place to protect the worker from situations like this. Fire escapes must now be able to accomate and serve people on every floor of a building. Sprinklers are now in place to help douse fires before they reach the proportions that had been in the fire. There must now be a designated fire exit which cannot be locked or obstructed in any way to ensure safe passage from a fire. Fireman are now more capable and prepared to protect and serve those in a better way than they were before the fire. In a catalytic way much like that of the Titanic, the fire saved numerous lives in the future, and through exponential growth, even more. New labor laws, although controversial, allow workers to unionize and to have some protection from the government against retaliation from employers, and these unions have lead to better working conditions for everyone. In a sort of tragic way, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that killed more than 100 workers and injured so many others has become a lesson, and a wake up call to base our future experiences off
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