Question

what happened in the triangle shirtwaist fire? (describe and facts)

Answer 1

1.The Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory was located in the top three floors of the Asch Building in Manhattan, New York City.The factory was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris.

2. On March 25, 1911 ,a Saturday afternoon and there were around 600 workers at the factory when a fire began in a rag bin. The fire extinguisher had a broken valve and proved to be useless.

3. It resulted in the death of 146 factory workers, most of whom died as a result of jumping from the windows or trapped in elevator shafts.Rest were burnt alive.

4.The workers were mostly teenage immigrant girls, who had to work 12 hour shifts for meagre wages.

5.It was a common practice to lock the doors of factories to prevent workers from leaving before time. When the fire broke out all the exits were either locked or only opened inwards. The only fire exit was very narrow and could not be used for evacuation. The elevators had limited capacity and broke down from the overload.

6.To add to the problems,the firefighters' ladder couldn't reach the upper floors where the fire broke out.

7 .The incident is infamous because it highlighted the grim working standards in factories as most of the deaths were preventable. It was also an eye opener since the industry was at a boom at the time.