146 Burn Alive: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Sparks Labor Reform

The factory owners had 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 in Manhattan's Greenwich Village on March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers could not escape. Most were Jewish and Italian immigrant women between the ages of 16 and 23. The youngest were 14. They burned alive or jumped nine stories to the pavement while horrified crowds watched from Washington Place below. The fire nets were too weak to hold falling bodies. Several women held hands as they jumped. Bodies hit the sidewalk with such force that they broke through the concrete vault lights embedded in the pavement. The fire department's tallest ladders reached only to the sixth floor, two stories below the fire. Within 18 minutes, 146 people were dead. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire became the deadliest industrial disaster in New York City history. The public outcry was immediate and transformative. An estimated 350,000 people marched in the funeral procession. Within 18 months, New York State passed 36 new labor laws, the most sweeping worker protection legislation in American history, regulating fire safety, working hours, sanitation, and child labor. Frances Perkins, who had witnessed the fire from the street, went on to become Secretary of Labor under Franklin Roosevelt and credited the Triangle fire as the moment that launched the New Deal labor reforms. The factory owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were tried for manslaughter and acquitted. They were later found guilty of locking the factory doors during subsequent inspections and fined $20, approximately $75 per dead worker. The building, now known as the Brown Building, stands as part of New York University. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991.