This book is about two thirds history of the New York Labor movement at the time of the fire, and one third actual details about the event. I found it interesting - the author tied the labor history information into the personal lives of some of the victims and I finally have a clue about Tammany Hall, which was just a "bad politics in history" thing to me before. The actual discussion of the fire was gripping, and the diagrams of the various factory floors really helped with visualizing what the workers had to contend with.

As usual, I wished there were more pictures of the people involved and I'd have liked a map of the area, but the account is impressively thorough, especially the first complete list of victims which the author culled from various published sources.

Worth reading. ( )

Extremely well researched and written "Triangle" is the story of the 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factor that killed 146 workers, most of them young women. David von Drehle not only writes about the fire, but the events leading up to the fire, including a prolonged strike by garment workers in 1909. The conditions the workers had to deal with are also described as well as the incredibly long work week (100 hours) for low wages which the owners tried to make even lower whenever they could. Von Drehle describes in great detail the fire, the workers attempts to escape the fire and the efforts of people both inside and outside the factory that struggled to save the victims. He also describes the aftermath of the fire and covers the owner's trial and whether or not they were convicted on any charges. Finally, he includes the first complete list of the fire victims and how they died.

I've wanted to learn more about the Triangle factory fire since I saw a TV movie about it in the late `70's. This book was very informative. The history parts were interesting and helped set the picture of what life was like at the time of the fire. The parts about the fire were hard to read at times not only because of the depictions of the victims dying but the memories it arose of September 11th as some victims were forced to jump from the ninth floor windows to escape the flames. The aftermath of the fire was also interesting, including what happened at the trial of the two owners of the Triangle. The list of the names of most of the victims (six were never identified) was compelling and makes readers realize the victims were mostly young women with the rest of their lives ahead of them. The list of victims is a perfect example of how well researched the entire book is - their names (and the various names misreported in the papers), ages, how they died, and who identified the bodies is listed.

Because of the subject matter, "Triangle" is at times a difficult read, but well worth it. ( )

This is one of the best history books I've read in quite a while. To understand the importance of the Triangle Waist Company fire in labor history, it is also important to understand the context in which it occurred. I hadn't realized how the rise and fall of Tammany Hall was so intimately tied in with a business and political climate that would permit a situation in which such a deadly fire could occur, and also with the reformist aftermath, which was instrumental in leading to New Deal policies. The story of the trial, and the political maneuvering leading up to it, was fascinating.

Von Drehle is a fine writer. The most moving chapter must be the one he calls, "Three Minutes", referring to the fact that had the alarm been sounded three minutes sooner, many lives might have been saved. His descriptions of how many of the workers died had me in tears. While it is very easy to pile horror on horror, von Drehle shows you the people, both the survivors and the lost. There is one extraordinary section of this chapter in which, after telling of the people standing in the windows "cry[ing] 'fire!' because what else was there to say?", and the fire ladders not tall enough, and the watchers below "their tiny hands . . . up, as if a gesture could hold the doomed workers forever in the mouth of a furnace" he then describes the view from the windows. "[T]he cool, clear air beyond the furnace; the gray-brown tracery of bare trees quilting Washington Square (faintly washed with the first whisper of new green) . . .the birds starting from nearby eaves and wheeling through the sky; the elegant campanile of the church on the square, and the pleasing aesthetic echoes of it in the two orange brick loft building that faced the Asch Building . . .one of the least decorated in the neighborhood, [it] featured miniature terra-cotta columns, fluted in the classical style, as dividers between the upper-floor windows. Workers were clinging to these decorations now."

In 1913, two years after the fire, the New York State legislature passed a series of fire safety laws, including requiring automatic sprinklers in high-rises, and unlocked doors. in the fall of 2003, 6 people died in a high-rise office building in Chicago. There were no automatic sprinklers, and the victims were trapped in a stairwell because the fire doors were locked.

Takes you back to sweatshop New York through a riveting story of a 1911 tragedy, the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company that trapped 123 young seamstresses and launched twentieth-century labor reform. ( )

Another interesting book on fire catastrophes. So sad. It was some interesting history and I learned a lot about the evolution from the cottage industry to sweat shops to early manufacturing. Big difference between then and now. ( )