Place Matters: Landmarking the Site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Guest Post by Marci Reaven

Marci Reaven is the Director of Place Matters, a project of City Lore and the Municipal Arts Society.  She was influential in the process to designate the Brown Building a New York City Landmark in 2003.  Reaven also collaborated with NYU graduate students on the exhibit Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire at the Grey Art Gallery.  In this guest post, Marci discusses the resources she uses when studying and researching the Triangle fire.

One terrific source of information about the Triangle fire focuses on the building where the fire took place. It’s the report created in 2003 by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission as part of the process of designating the building a New York City landmark.

Getting to the online document takes some clicking and scrolling: http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/home/home.shtml

Forms & Publications, Designation Reports, Manhattan, Individual Landmarks, Brown Building.



Brown Building (originally the Asch Building)
Photo by NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission



The report is particularly interesting because the writer, Gail Harris, not only discusses the events leading up to and following the fire, but also the creation of manufacturing lofts like the one occupied by the Triangle Company and their importance to the garment industry. She helps us understand why the fire “happened here.” The garment unions and the NYC Fire Department have been holding regular commemorations at the now-named Brown Building (on the corner of Washington and Greene Streets) since the 50th anniversary of the fire in 1961. Their longstanding attention to the building has made it a critical support in sustaining public memory of the fire. This prompted the Place Matters project and many historians and labor and community activists to propose it for landmark designation.



Rather surprisingly, it was the first local building designated for its association with labor history! Since landmark designation not only protects buildings but also makes them part of an official NYC history, it would be great to now get some other labor landmarks protected as well.

Posted by Marci Reaven

Director, Place Matters, a project of City Lore and the Municipal Art Society

Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: A Collaborative Project Between the Grey Art Gallery and NYU Graduate Students

When I first moved to New York, I didn’t know much about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. What I did know could be summarized by several key words: locked door, trapped workers, and fire. I’ve only lived in NYC for two years, I moved here for New York University’s Museum Studies graduate program. Many of the Museum Studies classes have been held in the Silver Center, the building adjacent to the Brown Building – formerly known as the Asch Building. Last fall, a course was offered to Museum Studies and Public History graduate students to create an exhibit on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire for the Grey Art Gallery – NYU’s fine art museum. I jumped at the chance to learn more about the workplace tragedy that occurred only steps away from my classes.

Firefighters spray water on the Asch Building
trying to put out the Triangle factory fire blaze,
March 25, 1911
Photo from ILGWU Archives,
Kheel Center, Cornell University 

This was my first experience researching and developing an exhibit from start to finish. This was also the first time students collaborated on an exhibit for the Grey Art Gallery. On the first day of class, we all sat expectantly, as our two professors, Lucy Oakley – the Head of Education and Programs at the Grey Art Gallery, and Marci Reaven – the Director of Place Matters and a collaborator on the NYC Landmarking of the Brown Building, introduced themselves. Marci pointed out how remarkable it was that a class of sixteen women was going to create an exhibit about the Triangle fire, which affected mostly young immigrant women. The content and themes of the exhibit were going to be multifaceted. First, we were to examine the events leading up to the fire, a chronicle of the fire itself, and the occurrences after the fire. Then we were to record the fire’s legacy through the New Deal era, and to follow the commemorative efforts from the fiftieth anniversary in 1961 to the present. We wanted to conclude the exhibit with a call for continued vigilance and political reform for the protection of workers’ rights both in the United States and internationally.

The most practical approach to creating an exhibit with sixteen students was to break up into four teams, with each team tackling one of the four sections of the exhibit. I was part of section one. Section one focuses on the years 1909 to 1919, and it explores the strike of 1909, the Triangle fire, and the aftermath that ensued in the days and years following the fire. Over the course of the semester, we did extensive research, chose objects, and wrote text for the panels and labels that were to be mounted in the exhibit. Selecting objects was one of my favorite aspects of the exhibition process. One of the women in my group had a friend who constructed a shirtwaist for the exhibit. My group felt it was extremely important for visitors to see a representation of a shirtwaist. Lawn, a highly flammable material, was the fabric used to make the shirtwaists at the turn of the twentieth century. The flammability of the material was one of the major reasons the fire spread so quickly on that fateful day in March.

Shirtwaist
Photo by Huffington Post

When creating the exhibit we had to be considerate of the different stakeholders that are involved in the commemoration efforts, and we had to respect the policies and aesthetics of the Grey Art Gallery. One of the greatest challenges was working together as a class. Of course each of us had a vision of what the exhibit should look like, but we were able to work together so our ideas became compatible.

Working on this exhibit was a wonderful experience. I learned more about myself in the process, such as understanding my strengths and weaknesses when working in a large group. Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire has received an amazing response from the public, which makes the experience all the more valuable, because people are responding to our work.  If you want to learn more about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire or become involved in the commemorative events for the 100th anniversary, make Art/Memory/Place at the Grey Art Gallery your first stop.

Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire will run until March 26, 2011 and will re-open on April 12 to July 9, 2011. The Grey Art Gallery is located at 100 Washington Square East, NYC 10003. For more information, visit the Grey Art Gallery website.


Posted by Alana Rosen

Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Fire with the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, Guest Post by Ruth Sergel

The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition grew out of the Chalk project, a commemorative and collective action of inscribing the names and ages outside of the homes of the Triangle fire victims.  Ruth Sergel is the founder of the Chalk project and the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, the organization that has put together the most comprehensive list of events related to the Triangle fire.



On March 25, 1911 a fire broke out on the 8th floor of the Triangle Waist Company located just one block east of Washington Square Park. The workers ran to the fire escape. It collapsed, dropping them to their deaths. On the 9th floor, a critical exit was locked. People on the street watched in horror as the workers began jumping out the windows. Fire trucks arrived but their ladders only reached the 6th floor. One hundred forty-six people - mostly young immigrant women - perished. There was a trial but the owners, long known for their anti-union activities, were acquitted.

March 25, 2011 is the Centennial of this infamous fire. In concert with over 200 organizations and individuals across the country, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition is networking commemorative events – activism, education, the arts – and coordinating the establishment of a
permanent public art memorial.

Please join us!

March 25, 11:00am Workers United Centennial Commemoration: Washington Place and Greene Street, just one block east of Washington Square Park. For more information on this and other centennial events please visit our website: www.rememberthetrianglefirecoaltion.org

Posted by Ruth Sergel
Founder of Remember the Triangle Fire Coaltion

Recommended Reading on The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Over the last 100 years, there have been countless works of literature, art, theater, and even movements of political reform that were inspired by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.  The following is the Tenement Museum's recommended reading list of books that explore both the events that occurred on that fateful day in March, and the causes and effects of the Triangle fire tragedy.


1. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle

2. The Triangle Fire by Leon Stein

3. The Triangle Fire, The Protocols of Peace, and Industrial Democracy: In Progressive Era New York by Richard A. Greenwald

4. Triangle: A Novel by Katherine Weber

For Young Adults
5. Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy by Albert Marrin

6. Fire at the Triangle Factory by Holly Littlefield -- suitable for children ages 9-12

Of Related Interest
7. The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker: A Story of the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike in New York by Theresa Serber Malkiel

8. Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars by Elizabeth Ewen

9. From the Folks Who Brought you the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States by Priscilla Murolo

10. Daughters of the Shtetel: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation by Susan A. Glenn

"Piecing it Together" and the Impact of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire on Immigrant Life: An Educator's Perspective

I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t remember learning about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire growing up in Tennessee. Maybe it wasn’t taught at my school. Maybe I tuned out during that unit.

I’m even more embarrassed to admit that, despite 4 years in college as a history major, it was not until I became an educator at the Tenement Museum that I had more than a superficial understanding of what had happened at 19 Washington Place on March 25, 1911. Since I first began working with the Museum, virtually every "Piecing It Together" tour I lead has begun with a visitor asking, “Are you going to talk about the fire? The Triangle fire?”

I have been at the museum now for almost two years, yet I still marvel at how many of our visitors know about the fire - parents, kids, teachers – and not just those from New York. They know about the locked doors. They know about the fire as a watershed moment in this country’s movement towards labor regulations and the support of unions.

And now the answer to the question is of course, “Yes. I will be talking about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.”

New York Evening Journal headline from March 28, 1911
Image Courtesy Kheel Center at Cornell University

In keeping with the countless articles, television specials on PBS and HBO, and hundreds of events around the country commemorating the 100th anniversary of the fire, educators at the museum present the tragedy within the historical and political context of the labor movement.  We also draw connections between this history and the precarious position of unions today as evidenced by the recent events in Wisconsin.

What I think the museum does best, however, is to paint a picture of how the fire and its aftermath was experienced by the people living within the community and who were most impacted by the tragedy. We do this by examining the fire from the perspective of the Rogarshevsky family, an Eastern European Jewish immigrant family that arrived in the United States in 1901. The Rogarshevskys moved into 97 Orchard Street by 1910, and by the time of the fire in 1911, at least three family members were working in the garment industry: Abraham, the father, at a small tenement sweatshop in the neighborhood, and Ida and Bessie, the two daughters, at a big factory like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory further up town.




Rogarshevsky Parlor
Photo by Tenement Museum

 

We imagine how the mother, Fannie, must have felt when word of the fire reached the neighborhood. Perhaps initially without the name of the specific factory, Fannie feared the worst for her two daughters.

We look at the front page of the Jewish Daily Forward from Sunday, March 26, 1911, the day after the fire. The headline reads, “The Morgue is Filled With Our Sacrifices” – OUR sacrifices, the sacrifices of an entire community. Together, visitors imagine the eight members of the Rogarshevsky family poring over the paper together, looking for names of friends and neighbors in the preliminary list of victims.

Perhaps Abraham, the most religiously observant of the family, looked up from the paper and announced to his family that it was not a mere coincidence that the fire broke out on a Saturday, the holiest day of the week within the Jewish tradition. Perhaps he viewed the fire as a punishment for those Jews breaking their commandment with God by working on the Sabbath.

Did his children share his view or did they voice opposing opinions over the parlor table? Maybe they reminded him that the majority of factories were dark on Sundays, so that despite the imposition on religious traditions (and despite the unsafe and unhygienic conditions, the low pay and poor treatment, and the exploitation by foremen and bosses), immigrants like themselves had no choice but to work Monday through Saturday, regardless of the Commandments.

For me, this kind of approach breathes life into an event that has become synonymous with immigrant issues, women’s issues, workers’ issues, and resonates primarily on a political level. It illuminates the personal at the heart of the political.

Posted by Clare Burson

Commemorative Events for the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

On March 25, 1911, as employees of the Triangle Waist Company finished their workday in the Asch Building (now known as the Brown Building; located on Washington Place and Greene Street), a fire broke out when a cigarette was thrown into a pile of lawn, an extremely flammable fabric used to make shirtwaists. As a result of poor safety conditions and a lack of emergency protocol in the Triangle factory, 146 men and women died tragically.  The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a climatic moment in labor history because it spurred the United States government to pass legislative reforms that would protect workers' rights.

Wednesday, March 25, 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Fire. There are countless forms of commemoration occurring throughout New York City and even across the country. The following are events, resources, and websites that can help one learn about and become involved with the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

Official Commemoration on March 25, 2011
Workers United will sponsor the official commemoration of the Triangle fire at the Brown Building in New York City
11 am: Music
12 pm: Speakers
4:45 pm EST: Join churches, schools and fire houses across the country to ring a bell at the exact time the first alarm was sounded

Programs at the Tenement Museum
March 22, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Fire Escape: A Commemorative Performance
America-in-Play memorializes the 100th anniversary of the fire with a performance that honors the victims of this tragedy.
Located at 108 Orchard Street

March 23, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Triangle: The Fire That Changed America with David Von Drehle
The author of the definitive social history discusses American labor conditions before and after the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of our city.
Located at 108 Orchard Street
Visit Tenement Talks 

“Piecing it Together” Tour
See the homes and garment shop of Jewish families who lived in the tenement during the “great wave” of immigration to America.
Tours Given Daily

Comprehensive List of Events at the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition is supporting organizations and the collaboration between communities across the country by spearheading the creation of commemorative events.
Visit the Remember the Triangle Fire's Online Calendar of Events

Online Resources
Triangle Fire Open Archive
The Triangle Fire Open Archive is an online archive being created by community contributions to tell the story of the Triangle Fire and its relevance today.
Visit the Open Archive 

Remembering The Triangle Factory Fire 100 Years Later Online Exhibit
Cornell University's IRL School Kheel Center honors the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Fire through a detailed online web exhibit.
Visit the Triangle Fire Online Exhibit

American Experience: The Triangle Fire Documentary
PBS created a documentary on the deadliest workplace accident in New York City.
Watch the Triangle Fire Documentary

Next week the Tenement Museum blog will be solely focused on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Please stay tuned.

Teens Turn the Tragedy of History into Theater

Today we have a guest-blog from Ryan Gilliam, Artistic/Executive Director, Downtown Art.

Many New Yorkers are familiar with the history of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It was a devastating event and launched a determined and ultimately successful campaign to improve factory working conditions early in the last century.

The young workers who died in the fire, most of them women, many of them girls still in their teens, are remembered each year on the fire’s anniversary. Their names are chalked on the sidewalk outside the tenements where they once lived. This spring, on March 25, 2011, the 100th anniversary of the fire will be commemorated with a whole host of events.

I’m a playwright and theater director who has chosen to work with teens for the past twenty years. I admire young people and have long sought to be a champion for their capacities and talents. A year or so ago, I began my own journey to discover who the young seamstresses of the Triangle Factory had been before they became victims of that terrible fire. I found their story to be remarkable.

These young women, most of whom were immigrants and only a handful of whom had any experience with the labor movement, managed to sustain one of the first major strikes by women, a general strike which sought a 52 hour work week, a 20% pay increase, and union recognition.

The strike, which lasted through a cold and bitter winter, was controversial, and the girls found themselves facing intimidation and violence on the picket lines as well as harsh treatment from the police and the courts. Their plight galvanized middle and upper class women to join them on the picket line, which became front page news.

The courage and perseverance of these young women in the strike of 1909/10, often called the "Uprising of the 20,000" inspired me to write The Waistmaker’s Opera. The opera premiered last May, and the heartfelt responses from our audiences were deeply moving.

We had the pleasure of performing an excerpt of the opera last week at the Tenement Museum's Tenement Talks series, as part of a program featuring author Philip Dray, whose new book, There is Power in a Union, has just been released.

This Saturday, September 25, we will open it again for two weekends. We perform our modern rock opera (original score by Michael Hickey) with a company of fifteen teen girls and a band of teen musicians. Act 1 moves through the streets after its start at the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Act 2 takes place in one location, a vacant lot on East 3rd Street, and the audience is seated.

To work with a company of young women the same age as the shirtwaistmakers has been a powerful experience for me. It is too easy for adults to overlook the contributions of teens to this city - to our lives, even - and The Waistmaker’s Opera is an effort to remember how young women, a hundred years ago, changed us not only with the tragedy of their deaths but with the courage of their lives.

-- Ryan Gilliam

For information on performances of The Waistmaker’s Opera, please visit our website at http://www.downtownart.org/

Photos from the Triangle

Today marks the 99th anniversary of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 people in 1911. It remains one of New York's deadliest workplace disasters.







Images courtesy NYPL.

Many publications offered up images of the fire, such as these from McClure's Magazine. This visual media brought the horror into homes across the country. Middle-class readers of McClure's were faced with the reality that many of their shirtwaists, dresses, stockings, suspenders, trousers, and shoes were produced under unethical conditions in factories like these. While the workers and the unions had been protesting for years, the Triangle encouraged the middle and upper-middle classes to join the fight in earnest.

Today there are many ways you can honor those who died in the fire and all those who fought for factory reforms - join the memorial service in front of the building, off Washington Square Park, at noon, or come to the Tenement Musuem's talk tonight with Kevin Baker, historical novelist; Steven Greenhouse, New York Times labor reporter; and our own Annie Polland, vice president of education. (Those of you looking forward to hearing David Von Drehle, author of Triangle - he has unfortunately had to cancel due to an illness in the family.)