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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…
I recently sat down with Irish Central to talk about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911, which marks its 110th anniversary this March 25th. Between research for my Gilded Age novel manuscript, Irish Eyes and my three-part podcast series with Irish historian Fin Dwyer, there was soooo much fascinating material that didn’t make it into either of those projects, leaving me lots to talk about, not only the grim facts of the fire but the workplace reforms won its wake.
The fire took the lives of 146 workers, most of them immigrant women and girls. The youngest victim was just 14 years old. Triangle policies such as denying workers fire drills and locking workroom doors from the outside greatly contributed to the catastrophic loss of life — the deadliest workplace disaster in New York State until 9/11.
In combing through the debris afterward, rescuers recovered fourteen engagement rings, a poignant reminder of the thwarted promise of so many young lives lost.
Check out my Irish Central interview here and then have a listen to the pod.
Tweet me your thoughts @hopetarr #historymatters.
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
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I’m thrilled to announce the launch of “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911: An Emigrant’s Experience,” a three-part podcast with Irish historian, author and podcaster Fin Dwyer. I first met Fin in 2018 at an event at the American Irish Historical Society in Manhattan where he was the guest speaker, thought he was brilliant and approached him afterward about how we might collaborate to put together a podcast program for the fire’s 110th anniversary on March 25, 2021. Nearly three years later, and more than 3,000 miles and five hours apart — Fin in Kilkenny and me in NYC — here we are!
The fire at the Triangle factory, housed in the Asch Building (today the Brown Building, part of New York University) took the lives of 146 workers, most of them immigrant women and girls, and injured 78 others, making it the deadliest workplace disaster in New York State until the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Each approximately 30-minute podcast episode looks at a different aspect of the fire as seen through the eyes of two immigrant factory workers who lived it: Annie Doherty, an Irish Catholic from Finn Valley in Ireland’s County Donegal and Celia Walker, an Eastern European Jew from Przemysl in southwestern Poland, in the late 19th century part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Listen to Episode One here, which follows Annie’s and Celia’s harrowing transatlantic journeys to turn-of-the-century 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: Fire and Episode Three: Legacy will post Monday, January 18 and Monday, January 25, respectively. 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
https://tinyurl.com/y38ntjuk
#HistoryMatters #podcast
Don’t miss a thing! Sign up for my newsletter here.