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 enlarge | Author: David Von Drehle
Publisher: Grove Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 31839
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 080214151X
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9780802141514
ASIN: 080214151X
Publication Date: August 16, 2004
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| Customer Reviews:
 Superb, start to finish January 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have learned to approach histories penned by journalists with a healthy skepticism, they being -- all too often -- sensationalist, in tone, and impoverished of ideas and research. Triangle is an exception, of the first order. Drehle has a brilliant eye for detail. Not only has he written a gripping account of the famous Triangle fire, itself, but a deeply researched and fascinating social and political history of the world -- turn of the century New York City -- in which the fire took place. Rarely has a popular history so captured my imagination and at the same time taught me so much. I very much look forward to reading future works by this author.
Superior work on a watershed industrial accident January 6, 2008
To me, this is a haunting work. It is pure history. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company occupied the three top floors of a 1911 New York highrise. It was a clothing factory, producing "shirtwaists," that is, women's blouses. The conditions were sweatshop style, and the attention to worker health and safety were abominable. Fabric pieces and cotton particles, which are all highly flammable, were collected in bins beneath the cutting tables. (A key worker in a clothing factory is the fabric cutter, who must accurately cut panels of apparel without excess waste.) The only fire safety precaution was buckets of water spread around the room. In order to control the work force, some of the (inadequate) exits were locked. A fire started, probably from smoking, and spread extremely quickly through two floors of the factory, killing 146 workers, almost all of whom were immigrants. Von Drehle sets up the conditions accurately and in detail, and has a large knowledge of the physics of fire. The description of the response of FDNY is heartbreaking, because here were caring public servants who couldn't get there in time to save many lives. There is a vivid description of a "gentleman" who helped ladies trapped by the fire escape being burned to death by helping them jump to their deaths - quite reminiscent of the choice that some of the WTC workers had in 2001.
The book documents the labor unrest which led to conditions which made the fire so deadly, and recounts the aftermath including the manslaughter trial of the owners in detail. The author analyzes the defense provided to the owners by Max Steuer (rhymes with "foyer"), who was one of the best trial lawyers of the 20th Century. (The owners were acquitted.)
This book brings to me very emotional images. One is a short scene in a movie about the fire made some years ago, where the first fire engine pulls out of the firehouse and responds to the call. In 1911, the engines were steam-powered pumps drawn by teams of horses, and the image of the engine plunging down the center of the street going to an incident which it will be wholly inadequate to fix is quite vivid.
Outstanding Read about 20th Century Fire August 30, 2007
This is a great book about the economics and history of twentieth century America and how the sweatshops were a big part of immigrant life in New York. The Triangle Factory disaster still has a message for those modern day factory shops in other parts of the world who continue to ignore safety laws and concerns. as a similar tragedy could easily happen again. This book uncovers those safety issues, that today should be standard in all factories across the globe. Of the 250 workers in the building, only a little more than 100 survived the fire. The death toll marked 140 people dead (123 of them women, of which about a hundred jumped or fell to their death). It is shocking to know that the owners were found not guilty, and even collected $60,000 in insurance payments. I pray that this tragedy will continue to arouse public action and continued lobbying for workplace safety. This is an excellent book!
The Disaster and the Era July 23, 2007
The New York Triangle fire of 3-25-1911 was the deadliest workplace disaster until 9-11-2001. About 100 workers died every day in the nation's workplaces then (p.3). Workplace safety was still a goal. Chapter 1 tells about that era. Tammany Hall was founded to support the Revolution against British rule, and the large landholders (p.21). Their function was to help people, and they collected from governmental operations (p.23). By the late 19th century they worked for the moneyed interests (p.24). William R. Hearst pushed municipal ownership (p.31). The immigrants made New York the ready-made clothes manufacturing capital. New loft buildings were an improvement over sweatshops and allowed improved productivity.
Changes began with the November 1909 election. All Tammany candidates lost to progressive candidates. The garment workers all went out on strike November 23, 1909 and soon won a pay raise, a 52-hour week, and a closed union shop from some manufacturers. Most factory owners formed an association to resist the workers. The help of rich society women was invaluable (their interest was in woman suffrage). Conflicts among the groups appeared (p.79). The workers wanted a union shop (p.81). The settlement saw higher wages and shorter hours, union membership was no longer prohibited (p.86). Chapter 4 has the history of that era, and tells why immigrants came to the golden land of America. The clothing trade was better than laundry or being a sales clerk (pp.113-114).
Chapter 5 tells about the fire. Scraps of cotton and tissue paper were very flammable (p.119). The water pails could not extinguish the fire. The water tank on the roof had no water (p.121). The scrap under the cutter's tables spread the fire rapidly (p.138). Fire-safe factories had existed for decades (p.160). The moneyed classes of New York did not choose sprinkler systems, fire-walls, fire doors, enclosed fire stairways as in other cities. Insurance companies made money selling policies, the higher the risk the more they made (p.161)! The Triangle Waist Company had repeated fires. A fire allowed them to collect on unsold inventory (p.162). Fashion changes resulted in arson. There were other fires at shirtwaist factories in 1911 (p.163). Why did some factories carry excess insurance? The fire was under control in just over 30 minutes (p.166).
In the aftermath everyone pointed the blame at someone else (pp.184-185). New laws for better fire escapes, enclosed fireproof stairways, automatic sprinklers, and fire drills were suggested. Pages 189-191 explain how Tammany Hall worked; also pages 198-199. The strength of the Socialist Party changed Tammany's policies (p.213). A series of new laws in 1913 remade NY labor law (p.215). Page 216 explains the legislator's trick of stalling a bill. In 1913 Tammany Hall chose a workingman-friendly platform and won its greatest statewide victory (pp.217-218). Locking factory doors during working hours was a misdemeanor. If this resulted in death it was manslaughter (p.220). Blanck and Harris were arrested and tried. Max Steuer was the greatest lawyer in New York. Did Judge Crain fix the trial (p.235)? Lawyer Steuer asked Kate Alterman to repeat her story so it seemed rehearsed and deceitful (p.249). Yet it was all true (p.250)! Many witnesses told of the movement of people during that day which implies unlocked doors (p.251). The judge's instructions were overwhelmingly favorable to the defense (p.255). There was conflict, but the jury heeded the judge's instructions. There was a secret in Judge Crain's life (p.257). His bias was with the defendants (p.258). The `Epilogue' tells what happened afterwards. The owners collected a huge amount over their actual losses (p.264)! Blanck was arrested and fined in 1913 for locked doors (p.265).
 Heartrending, but change is overstated February 12, 2007
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
In America it is assumed that market forces and the moral character of business owners will operate to protect workers from egregious safety issues. Of course, that defies historical fact. It has only been via government regulation that workers have ever achieved even a modicum of safety, and then only if government regulators do not turn a blind eye towards obvious problems. In the New York City of 1910 it was well known that factory lofts at the top of multi-story buildings, at a minimum, needed sprinkler systems, firewalls, access to stairways, functional fire escapes, smoking bans, unlocked doors, and periodic fire drills.
Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners of the Triangle Waist Company and makers of women's shirtwaists, ignored every one of those measures, which resulted in the horrific death of 146 mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women on Mar 25, 1911 when a discarded cigarette started a fire in cloth scraps on the eighth floor of their factory. The fire consumed that story and the two above it, consisting of 27,000 sq feet, in about 15 mins. The warning to the sewing machine operators on the ninth floor was delayed and then a locked stairway door was encountered. Over fifty leapt to their death; others fell down a shaft when the overloaded fire escape tore loose, and the remaining died on the floor, blocked from escape. Miraculously, about 350 escaped, some via the roof. Spectators watched in horror as the ladders of the NYFD fell short by thirty feet of rescuing those standing on the ledges.
The author makes the claim that this fire changed America, initiating a period of reform and ushering in urban liberalism, which is even today the basis of the Democratic Party. Actually, it was already an era of change and turmoil. The Progressive era of reform had started during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, due in large part to labor strife that had been occurring over several decades. The author begins the book by following Clara Lemlich, the firebrand leader of recently formed Local 25 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), in her very public efforts in trying to organize a strike among all shirtwaist workers and in being stalked by thugs hired to harm her sufficiently to stop her organizing. As a testimony to her resiliency, she overcame the beating to lead 20,000 workers out on strike in Nov, 1909.
Tammany Hall, the longstanding Democratic political machine in New York, was interdependent with the working class - especially in NYC; jobs and other benefits were exchanged for votes. But Tammany was not reformist; it generally supported businessmen and the status quo. The police department was a prime enforcer of their program including the harassment, if not brutal put down, of labor agitators. Tammany-beholden judges were more than willing to send picketers to the city workhouse for offences no greater than holding a sign. But many of NYC's newest immigrants, who were mostly Jewish, had been radicalized by being subjected to and escaping pogroms in Russia. Furthermore, upper-middle-class society matrons were aghast at the living and working conditions for these workers, and lent considerable support to those situations. Charles Murphy, the low-profile leader of Tammany, knew that this segment of the voting public would move in the direction of socialism if Tammany did not support reform.
In what is definitely its strongest part, the author devotes about one-third of the book to recapitulating what happened inside the factory as well as the public official response once the fire started. Though the fire consumed the factory in about 15 mins, the action the author describes among both the survivors and the doomed was fast and furious. Primarily from the testimony at the ensuing trial of the owners and from interviews of survivors by Leon Stein years later, he is able to personalize what happened in the factory on that fateful day. In addition, the author supplies in an appendix the most up-to-date listing of those who died in the fire. Six remain unidentified.
The owners of the factory retained prestigious lawyer Max Steuer to represent them against charges of manslaughter, based on illegally locking a stairway door. Steuer simply overmatched both the prosecutor and the immigrant women witnesses, easily finding holes in their stories and planting doubts. In addition, the author contends that the judge Thomas Crain conducted the trail in a highly prejudicial manner by disallowing much of the grim facts to be presented and instructing the jury that conviction was permitted only if the evidence could show that the owners specifically knew that the door in question was locked on that day at the time of the fire. The fact that there was evidence that the door was invariably locked at that time of day and that the bolted lock was found in the charred remains apparently carried no weight. Both Steuer and Crain had for many years supported Tammany constituents as the owners of Triangle Waist Company were.
Though the owners were acquitted, Tammany did not ignore the public clamor for some sort of reform. Tammany's chief representatives in the New York legislature, Robert F. Wagner in the Senate and Alfred E. Smith in the Assembly, were instrumental in forming the Factory Investigating Commission only three months after the Triangle fire, which embarked on passing sweeping safety legislation. That commission also included college-educated Frances Perkins, FDR's future Secretary of Labor and key player in the New Deal along with Robert Wagner.
Although reform measures were inspired by the Triangle fire, the author admits that the fire did recede from public memory fairly quickly. The author's claim that the strike "changed America" is certainly overstated. In 1912, not more than a year later, Lawrence, Mass was the scene of a huge textile workers strike led by the IWW in which local policemen resorted to clubbing children as striking parents attempted to put them on trains to Philadelphia. Though not the same deadly scenario as the Triangle fire, the overreaction of public officials towards striking workers was perhaps more egregious. A year after that, the striking silk workers in Paterson, NJ were subjected to massive arrests, which killed the strike. The huge reaction against labor unions after WWI, which decimated membership, undoubtedly was a major factor in the Great Depression as workers simply lacked the buying power to sustain the economy.
The author does not define "urban liberalism." It is clear that liberalism in all of its reformist variants has been severely rolled back over the last thirty years in the US. Median wages have been virtually flat throughout that time. Less than nine percent of US private sector workers are now represented by unions. More realistic statements can be made concerning the standing of workers and unions in the US. First, worker reforms are sporadic in nature, are often subject to rollback at some time, and are often unenforced. Second, the business class ultimately prevails in confrontations with workers; controlling information flow through media ownership is a huge advantage. Even if employment in the 21st century does not bring with it the same hazards as 100 years before, the world of work can still be highly contentious and difficult for employees.
The book is heartrending. It gives a flavor of the times: the immigration wave, the difficult living and working conditions, the forces arrayed against change, etc. But it is a snapshot. As those issues have unfolded over time, the story is often far more complex than the author intimates, and is not on a progressive climb.
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