Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Today is the Century anniversary of this disaster and can be counted as the fire that launched broad labor rights movement and legislation about workplace safety. It also was the catalyst that put Frances Perkins into F D R's administration.

Triangle : the fire that changed America

Dave Von Drehle

I wonder if they lock up those making our shmattas in Indonesia and China these days too...

I saw a dramatization of this event staged by Steppenwolf Theatre http://www.steppenwolf.org/ensemble/history/productions/index.aspx?id=203

Apparently just this last December there was another clothing factory fire in Bangladesh that killed 26 workers mainly women in the same kind of conditions i.e. locked doors and highly combustible material blocking access to means of escape.

Amy Goodman's Democracy Now had a gentleman from the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights speaking about it.

Goodman devoted today's show to the topic of the Triangle anniversary

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/25/100_years_after_triangle_fire_tragedy

I just finished reading David Von Drehle's Triangle: the Fire that Changed America. Very interesting, tragic. He explained the overall context very well, and cleared up some misconceptions I had about the factory.