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"On March 25, 1911, 146 employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City were killed in the span of a few minutes because no provision had been made for their safety in the event of fire. The Cornell edition of Leon Stein's 1962 account features 16 illustrations, some never before published. A new introduction by the journalist William Greider makes clear that accounts of dangerous workplaces and sweatshop conditions are still all-too-relevant today, ninety years after the fire. The story of the catastrophe and the doomed Triangle Shirtwaist workers, as told by one of the great labor journalists, will not soon be forgotten. Praise for the 1962 edition? "Stein ... recreate[s] the tragic events of the fire in all their dramatic intensity. His moving account is a work of dedication."?New York Times Book Review"With commendable restraint, [Stein] uses newspapers, official documents, and the evidence of survivors to unfold a story made more harrowing by the unemotional simplicity of its narration."?Library Journal"Stein ... suggests that the fire alerted the public to shocking working conditions all over the city and helped the unions organize the clothing industry, but his good taste keeps him from selling the reader any silver lining. A by-product of the careful research that has gone into this excellent narrative is an interesting sketch of the hard lives and times of working girls in the days when the business of America was business."--… (more)
Just 11 years after the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago killed 600 people, a fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York City again showed the impact of inadequate exits.
Leon Stein is a less talented writer than David von Drehle, who used this book as a source for his 2003 book, Triangle: The Fire that Changed America. But Stein, writing 40 years earlier, was able to interview survivors and onlookers who were not available to von Drehle. ( )
Judge M. Linn Bruce (counsel): How high can you successfully combat a fire now?
Edward F. Croker (Chief, New York City Fire Department): Not over eighty-five feet.
Bruce: That would be how many stories of an ordinary building?
Croker: About seven.
Bruce: Is that a serious danger?
Croker: I think if you want to go into the so-called workshops which are along Fifth Avenue and west of Broadway and east of Sixth Avenue, twelve, fourteen or fifteen story buildings they call workshops, you will find it very interesting to see the number of people in one of these buildings with absolutely not one fire protection, without any means of escape in case of fire.
--Before the New York State Assembly Investigating Committee on Corrupt Practices and Insurance Companies Other Than Life, City Hall, New York City, December 28, 1910
"On March 25, 1911, 146 employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City were killed in the span of a few minutes because no provision had been made for their safety in the event of fire. The Cornell edition of Leon Stein's 1962 account features 16 illustrations, some never before published. A new introduction by the journalist William Greider makes clear that accounts of dangerous workplaces and sweatshop conditions are still all-too-relevant today, ninety years after the fire. The story of the catastrophe and the doomed Triangle Shirtwaist workers, as told by one of the great labor journalists, will not soon be forgotten. Praise for the 1962 edition? "Stein ... recreate[s] the tragic events of the fire in all their dramatic intensity. His moving account is a work of dedication."?New York Times Book Review"With commendable restraint, [Stein] uses newspapers, official documents, and the evidence of survivors to unfold a story made more harrowing by the unemotional simplicity of its narration."?Library Journal"Stein ... suggests that the fire alerted the public to shocking working conditions all over the city and helped the unions organize the clothing industry, but his good taste keeps him from selling the reader any silver lining. A by-product of the careful research that has gone into this excellent narrative is an interesting sketch of the hard lives and times of working girls in the days when the business of America was business."--
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Leon Stein is a less talented writer than David von Drehle, who used this book as a source for his 2003 book, Triangle: The Fire that Changed America. But Stein, writing 40 years earlier, was able to interview survivors and onlookers who were not available to von Drehle. (