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On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Washington Place in Lower Manhattan, killing 146 workers, most immigrant women and girls, and sparking a nationwide fight for safer workplaces. I’m thrilled to share this milestone event in US labor history with readers of THE IRISH TIMES for the fire’s 110th anniversary. Read the full story here.
In case you missed…
On March 17, 1899, the Windsor Hotel at 575 Fifth Avenue caught fire, the first smoke and flames billowing from the building just as the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade reached 47th Street. Not even the proximity of the city’s firefighters marching by in their dress blues could save the grand hotel from burning to the ground. Nearly 90 people died, making the Windsor the deadliest hotel fire in New York and the worst commercial disaster until the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911.
Read the rest of the story on Medium.
Episode Three, the final episode of my podcast series, “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: An Emigrant’s Experience” with Irish historian, author and podcaster, Fin Dwyer looks at the fire’s legacy through the eyes of two young women workers who survived it, Annie Doherty from County Donegal, Ireland, and Celia Walker from Przemsyl, Poland. One woman would disappear from the public record less than a decade later; the other would go on to achieve a modest version of the American Dream.
Meanwhile, the public outcry against the factory owners’ criminal negligence would fuel an unprecedented nationwide labor reform effort led by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. For the first time in US labor history, women didn’t have to beg a seat at the bargaining table — they were leading the charge. 110 years later, we have these fiercely dedicated women to thank for fire drills and many other legally mandated workplace safety measures we take for granted today.
Catch up on the previous episodes here:
Episode One follows Annie’s and Celia’s harrowing transatlantic journeys to New York where both women would make their home, Annie in the notorious West side neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, Celia in the predominantly Eastern European Lower East Side.
Episode Two takes Annie and Celia from the citywide garment workers strike of 1909 known as The Uprising of 20,000 to Saturday, March 25, 1911 when the fire broke out on the factory’s eighth floor, trapping hundreds of young women and girls inside and killing 146, making it the most lethal workplace disaster in New York State until 9/11.
Have a listen and share your thoughts on Twitter where I post as @HopeTarr #HistoryMatters.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: An Emigrant’s Experience (Episode 3)
https://tinyurl.com/y3d9dtxy
#HistoryMatters #podcast
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They called them the Shirtwaist Kings. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, one of the largest ready-made clothing manufacturing firms in the United States and a principal provider of ladies’ button-up blouses, the go-to garment for the New Woman.
To the workers employed in their factories in Syracuse, Yonkers, Boston, Philadelphia and Manhattan, Blanck and Harris were more than kings. They were as good as gods, wielding the power of life and death over hundreds of employees, mostly immigrant women and girls like Annie Doherty from Ireland and Celia Walker from Poland, the subjects of my new three-part podcast series on the fire, a collaboration with Fin Dwyer, Irish historian, author and creator of the acclaimed Irish History Podcast.
Episode One follows Annie’s and Celia’s harrowing transatlantic journeys to New York where both women would make their home, Annie in the notorious West side neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, Celia in the predominantly Eastern European Lower East Side.
Episode Two, which launched 1/18/21, follows Annie and Celia from the citywide garment workers strike of 1909 to that fatal Saturday, March 25, 1911 when the fire broke out on the factory’s eighth floor. Within 30-minutes, 146 workers would be dead, another 78 injured, victims of what would be the deadliest industrial disaster in New York State until the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Episode Three, which looks at the legacy of the fire in the lives of survivors and in the larger landscape of labor reform, will post Monday, January 25.
Have a listen and then share your thoughts on Twitter where I post as @HopeTarr #HistoryMatters.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: An Emigrant’s Experience (Episode 2)
https://tinyurl.com/yxhn6a66
#HistoryMatters #podcast
Don’t miss a thing! Sign up for my newsletter here.
It’s beginning to feel A LOT like Christmas here in New York City. The windows of Macy’s, Saks, Bergdorf’s and other grande dame department stores are done to dazzling perfection and our humble abode is likewise decked out. Christmas tree trimmed – check. Stockings hung by the fire – check. Gift shopping finished — er, still working on that one.
Whether you’re looking for a feel good gift for family and friends or a fun, bubble bath read to kick off holiday self-care, I hope you’ll check out my following two books:
Magazine managing editor and unapologetic Scrooge, Starr Starling is just as happy to sleep through the holiday. On Christmas Eve Starr is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future—all in the form of Matt Landry, the hot new art director she’s secretly crushing on.
“Award-winning author Hope Tarr’s A Cinderella Christmas Carol presents a different kind of Dickens story — one with a hunky Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Be.” – Joyce Lamb, USA Today
Twenty-eight bestselling romance and women’s fiction authors, including Deanna Raybourn, May McGoldrick, Lisa Renee Jones and Yours Truly, share their real-life love stories in this wholesome, heart-warming anthology perfect for the winter holidays. Net sales benefit the formerly homeless moms and kids of Women in Need, Inc.
Patricia M.Loved this book! Some of the stories are funny, some are romantic, some are cute, some will break your heart but all are wonderfully true stories of love. I read anywhere from one to four stories a night. Enjoy, while you help a charity.
Animals aren’t just companions to me — they’re inspiration. Since launching my writing career, I’ve made it my tradition to include one of my real-life feline rescues as fictional “characters” in my books. Check out my feature in today’s USA TODAY HEA blog, duly shared with my rescue tabby cat, Daisy (“Forget belly rubs, Hope Tarr’s kitties get book cameos,” Sunday, October 11, 2015). To read more about Daisy and my other feline muses, check out my Best Friends page here!
I’m so, so, so excited!!!
This Tuesday, July 21st 7-9:30pm at Madame X, we at Lady Jane’s Salon® will welcome the 35th annual Romance Writers of America® national conference back to New York City. I say “back” because we’ve helped kick off the conference before, in 2011. Then we drew more than 125 attendees, including surprise guest, Eloisa James, and Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker, Laurie Kahn. Laurie and her crew from Blueberry Hill Productions filmed the Salon for her “Love Between the Covers” feature-length documentary film on the romance community. Check out the (less than four minute) footage from that crazy-fun night here.
But there’s more…
Along with co-hosting the event, I’ll be reading a never before released sneak peek from Irish Eyes, my very first foray into Women’s Historical Fiction. Set in Gilded Age through Jazz Age New York City, the manuscript has been a true Labor of Love. I can’t wait to share the first chapter with everyone!
Or to help roll out our stellar lineup of guests: Sonali Dev, Dahlia Adler, Carrie Lomax, Laura K. Curtis, Nancy Scanlon, and Regina Kyle. The service staff at our ever fab venue, Madame X, stands at the ready to serve with $5-$6 drink specials (including super yummy “mocktails”). We also have terrific raffle prizes donated by some of the romance industry’s brightest established and rising stars.
Best of all, your $5 admission supports our annual donation to our house charity, Win, helping real-life NYC families find their own Happily Ever After. It doesn’t get any better than that. If you’re in town for #RWA15 or simply in town, please plan to be our guest!
Today (2/9) is your LAST DAY to get my Victorian set historical, TEMPTING for FREE, and I don’t want any of you, my dear readers, to miss out, especially when it’s all so perfectly simple and refreshingly easy. Download the awesome–and also #FREE–EverAfter Romance ebook app: http://bit.ly/12jLGry (iOS) & http://bit.ly/1wNJT9t (Android). In less than a minute, the book will appear on your shelf.
Already have the app? Even better, just enter Code: htfree
Still need help deciding? Enjoy this never before released snippet from TEMPTING.
TEMPTING, © Hope Tarr, That Book, Inc.
Simon paced from one end of the fringed foyer runner to the other, white-gloved hands folded behind him. Piles of paperwork awaited him on his desk and yet with time on his hands still he hadn’t managed to make heads or tails of any of it. A soft sound stalled his steps. Expecting Mrs. Griffith or one of the housemaids, he looked to the staircase. And saw Christine.
Garbed in a gown of saffron silk, her hair swept up into an intricate confection of ringlets, her bared shoulders held back to reveal every proud inch of her lithe frame, she graced him with a soft smile. “Simon.”
Descending, she seemed more fantasy than flesh-and-blood, an exquisite angel floating toward him despite the hint of a hitch to her step. The hall was chilly but, inside him, heat spiked. Like a sleepwalker, he felt himself moving toward her, every glib greeting and clichéd compliment fleeing his brain. Only one word remained.
“Christine.”
She stepped off the landing, and he reached up to take her hand in his. “I’m not late, am I?”
That made him smile. Despite her finery, she was so unspoiled, so… dear. “To be truly fashionable, you should have kept me waiting for at least a half hour.” Realizing he still held onto her hand, he released it with regret.
Her smile dimmed. “Oh dear, I’ve gone about it all wrong again, haven’t I?”
Her words touched off the tenderness in his heart. “No, I’m glad you’re here.” He took the cape from her and hung it upon the hall tree. Turning back, he said, “I have a present for you.”
He led her over to the pier glass. Stepping behind her, he caught his first glimpse of her gown’s low back. All that beautiful bareness had him searching for his next breath.
Finding it, he said, “Close your eyes.”
She obeyed, and he reached into the inner pocket of his cutaway jacket and withdrew the black velvet box. “No peeking,” he chided, seeing her eyelid flicker. He snapped open the box. Withdrawing the necklace, he brought the gold chain about her throat.
“It’s cold.” She reached up, her fingertips brushing the pendant dangling just above the swell of her breasts.
“It was a long and rather bracing ride back from town,” he admitted.
“Your business was to buy me a gift?” Eyes still closed, she leaned back ever so slightly against him.
“It was.” He fumbled but finally fastened the clasp. He lingered a moment more, inhaling her sweet, clean scent, then stepped back. “Open your eyes.”
She did, and their gazes met in the mirror. She looked down at the necklace and uttered an exclamation of delight. “Oh, Simon, it’s fair near the same color as my gown. How did you know?”
“My spies are everywhere.” He winked, feeling light and young and altogether freer than he had in years, quite possibly ever. That the pendant complemented her gown was pure happenstance. He’d bought the amber because the color made him think of her eyes, eyes capable of capturing men’s hearts with a single, liquid look. “Do you like it?”
She whisked about to face him. “It’s the loveliest gift I’ve ever gotten.”
You’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen, he thought but didn’t dare say.
“I’m glad,” he said, both happy and humbled that his token had made her so happy.
She took a step back. “Do I look—” She faltered, brow furrowed, likely searching for one of the long, elegant words she shored up for such occasions. “Do I look…ravished?”
Accustomed as he’d become to the artful simpering of society beauties, Christine’s guilelessness was akin to being handed a glass of iced lemonade after hours of sun baked toil. Refreshing, delicious, sweet—and yet tartly tempting.
Pressing a hand to the small of her back, he felt her shiver against his fingertips. “Not yet…but then the evening is young.”
~~~ ~~~
Sometimes Christmas–or in this case, Valentine’s–comes early! Check out the article featuring me in today’s New York Post and find out how data science, a divorce–and a seriously awesome 1860’s “fainting couch”–led me to NYC where I wrote OPERATION CINDERELLA and found my very own Happily Ever After!
(Author photo by Anne Wermiel for the NY POST).
