146 Burn Alive: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Sparks Labor Reform
The factory owners locked the exit doors from the outside to prevent workers from stealing fabric scraps worth pennies. When fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Asch Building, 146 garment workers—mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women—couldn't escape. They burned alive or jumped nine stories to the pavement while horrified crowds watched below. The fire nets couldn't hold them. Bodies hit the sidewalk with such force that they broke through the concrete. Within eighteen months, New York passed 36 new labor laws, the most sweeping worker protections in American history. The owners? Acquitted of manslaughter, fined twenty dollars for the locked doors.
March 25, 1911
115 years ago
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