Triangle Fire
The tragic Triangle Waist Company fire on March 25, 1911 in New York City’s Greenwich Village was a major turning point in American history. One hundred and forty-six workers, mostly teenage Jewish and Italian immigrant girls, perished after the fire broke out on Triangle Company’s sweatshop on the 8th and 9th floors of the building. Many were locked in, a common measure to prevent theft, and the only available exit was a multi-story plummet to the pavement below. Others burned alive or were stampeded to death in the rush to escape.
After the Fire Governor John Alden Dix (D) created the Factory Investigating Commission (FIC) and granted it powers unprecedented in New York’s history. The FIC experienced remarkable success in restricting child labor and granting women workers a reasonable workday.
Cry Wolf Quotes
Such [sanitary] certificates will give a possible opportunity for an unfair person to make demands for graft on the small baker, who is always reluctant to go into the courts to force recognition of his rights. We believe either or both of these sections would have the effect of gradually reducing rather than increasing the number of small bakeries.
[Sprinkler systems are a] cumbersome and costly apparatus.
The business men of this country who have made and saved money should no longer be supervised, criticized, or controlled by men who have neither made nor saved it.
It is almost impossible to sell any real property in New York City at the present time at its assessed value.
