Triangle Factory Laws
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. The FIC even tried to institute a minimum wage for New York, but political opponents stifled the policy proposal. Other accomplishments include:
Automatic sprinklers became mandatory in buildings seven stories or higher and factories of 200 or more employees.
Factory doors had to be unlocked during work hours, and they were required to swing outwards.
A building construction code requiring that new buildings include multiple enclosed fireproof stairways and fire escapes.
Employers are required to provide clean drinking water, washrooms, and toilets for their employees.
Women could work no more than a 54 hour work week and nine hours a day.
Children ages 18 and under were banned from work that could injure their health and well-being.
Cry Wolf Quotes
Not only is this against the principal of home rule, but such legislation transfers the enforcement of the law to an unknown and untried body of men and takes it out of the hands of the Fire Department….one of the most efficient departments of the City of New York.
The hardship entailed on a certain proportion of the home workers, without means of support, the distress they will suffer, their loss will be greater than the benefit coming to the public through the elimination of that work.
This night work has been rendered necessary largely because of the Government’s perfectly unreasonable attitude towards large corporations, which has made it impossible for managers of large concerns to know whether….they could expand their plans to keep up with increasing demands or not.
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.
