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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: 22275
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:
 Excellent work of labor history November 29, 2004
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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. Last fall (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.
 More than just about a fire November 15, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Triangle" described the 1911 fire at the Triangle Waist Company where 146 workers perished, which was New York City's worst workplace disaster until the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Von Drehle is a gifted writer and makes history come alive in his retelling of this fire that killed with such swiftness: The blaze did its deadly work in less than 15 minutes from start to finish.
I bought this book because I have long been interested in stories of infamous fires (beginning as a 10-year old reading a now out of print book about the Coacoanut Grove fire). Thus, one of the aspects of the book I found personally somewhat disappointing is that it got off to a rather slow start, with the first 115 pages devoted to a history of such topics as immigration in New York City in the early 1900s, Tammany Hall, and the strike by shirtwaist workers. I understand that Von Drehle's motivation by providing this history was to place the Triangle Fire in the larger cultural context so as to render understandable how such neglect of safety issues was tolerated in those days. Providing this detail thus makes the book educational rather than sensationalistic, and I found myself learning a lot. However, the bottom line is that I bought the book because I wanted to learn about a famous fire and not particularly about the labor history of New York in the 1900s.
That having been said, it is a testament to Von Drehle's writing ability that he was able to make what could have been dry history riveting enough to keep me going through 115 pages until the part on the fire began. Through painstaking research of original sources, he was able to find enough detail about individual workers so that the reader sees their deaths for the personal tragedies they were and not just another workplace statistic. His prose at times was beautiful and poignant. Take, for example, this sentence (p. 138) describing the recollection of one of the survivors of the fire: "...he saw 'five or six girls falling from the windows.' They seemed to start out just a few feet below him, barely out of reach, but then they dropped into space and got smaller and smaller until the world, for them, came to a sudden end." This book serves an important function of making sure that the victims of the Triangle Fire are not forgotten. More important, the book provides a vivid reminder that the safeguards most Americans enjoy in their workplaces today to ensure that such a disaster never happens again came with a terrible price.
"Triangle" fires historical imagination, indignation September 25, 2004
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Incendiary disasters grab headlines. The sight and sound of humans consumed by fire horrify onlookers; the profound shock of loss often compels introspection, investigation and response. Just as the United States underwent such a process in the fall of 2001, so did New York in the spring of 1911 when 146 employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory perished in a ghastly inferno on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of the Asch Building. David Von Drehle's account of that fire -- of its causes, its victims, its consequences -- "Triangle," is social history at its best. Meticulous in detail, riveting in its narrative and perceptive in its analysis, "Triangle" captures the reader's attention from its first paragraph and never lets go.
This human-caused catastrophe reflects the wrenching social changes occurring in the United States at the onset of the twentieth century. Von Drehle deftly interweaves feminism, immigration, industrialization, and progressivism in his analysis of the Triangle fire. Events as disparate as the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius and pogroms in the Pale of Settlement in Russia find a place in his explanation as to how the Triangle workers found their way to New York. Readers experience steerage, sweatshop conditions and the tang of New York immigrant life as Von Drehle humanizes the victims. At the same time, he presents an unbiased picture of the two owners of the factory; their cupidity rivals their ambition and their own immigrant backgrounds reflect and refract the American drive for success.
The single greatest strength of "Triangle" is Von Drehle's talented depiction of the significant men and women whose arrogance and idealism, courage and cowardice, ambition and altruism clash throughout the narrative. We meet gutsy Clara Lemlich, a Russian Jewish immigrant who is so devoted to economic justice that she continues her organizing and exhortations despite being brutally beaten by goons hired by the bosses. Charles F. Murphy, Tammany Hall's feared boss, becomes the agent through which the Democratic Party transforms itself into the voice of urban liberalism. Max D. Steuer, himself a former garment-shop worker, gains legendary status as the attorney whose brilliant cross-examination of a bewildered survivor results in the acquittal of the beleaguered factory owners.
It was not just a locked door that caused the death of over 140 workers. David Von Drehle accurately ascribes responsibility to an inert New York City political bureaucracy that tacitly encouraged factory owners to build deathtraps disguised as places of employment. The Triangle fire occurred at a time when unions were struggling to find their place, when the police were in the pockets of industrialists, when women were politically voiceless. "Triangle" serves to remind us that disaster lurks whenever the drive for profit overwhelms the need to protect the powerless. This sensitive, comprehensive and inspiring social history admonishes, instructs and inspires.
A Trajady That Lead to the Democratic Party September 24, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Is there something about the number eleven? There was 9/11 that killed more people than any other workplace disaster. But there was also 1911 and the Triange Waist Fire. As with 9/11 this fire marked a turning point. The fire lasted only about a half hour. It killed 146 workers, most of them young immigrant women.
The book tells the story well, not only the few minutes of the fire itself, but setting the scene in the context of its time. Fire sprinklers had been invented by then, but there was no incentive to install them. The insurance companies charged the same if they were installed or not. The exit doors were locked, because of the owners fear that the employees might steal things.
In an interesting manner, the author traces the aftermath of the fire to the establishment of the Democratic party as the champion of urnan liberalism and elevated F.D.R. to the Presidency.
"Their monument and legacy are stitched into our world" September 17, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I first heard of the Triangle Waist (as in "shirtwaist" or a woman's blouse) factory fire of 1911 during a course in labor economics. The event will probably be covered in a page or two in a labor economics textbooks or, possibly, a paragraph in an American history textbook. I was surprised to learn from this book that the fire represented the greatest loss of life in a New York workplace for 90 years, being surpassed by 9/11. Many who have not studied the progressive era in American history or the history of labor movements may never have heard of this tragedy. David von Drehle in "Triangle" does an excellent job describing the labor climate up to the event, the disaster itself, and the important aftermath that explains why the Triangle fire needs to be remembered.
Drehle presents the most thorough account of the garment factory fire since Leon Stein's extensive interviews of survivors in "The Triangle Fire," published in 1962. Drehle uncovered the long lost and brittle transcript of People v. Harris & Blanck (Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were the owners of Triangle). Drehle also compiled the first complete list of the 140 identified fire victims by scouring the many contemporary newspaper accounts. His description of the fire is graphic and well detailed; for example, take this chilling sentence: "If there was pain, it was brief, for the fire burned quickly past her never endings" (p. 170). Illustrations of each floor of the factory is included. Drehle also includes essential background information such as the history of the garment industry (pp. 39-42), the inner workings of the factory, the state of labor relations at the time including the 1909 strike that attracted such high profile supporters as Alva Vanderbilt Belmont and J. P. Morgan's daughter, and even the cultures of the different workers in the factory (i.e. an interesting comparison of Italian and Eastern European Jewish workers, pg. 60). Drehle does not lay as much blame on the owners of the factory as I expected; in fact, he reveals interesting information on such things as the infamous locked doors that has me thinking differently about the tragedy. Background information is also provided on the important characters surrounding the event from Russian woman activist Clara Lemlich, who was beaten during a pre-fire labor strike, to the "Tammany Hall Twins" Robert F. Wagner and Alfred E. Smith who worked to get reform measures passed after the fire. As important as this background information is, it does divert away from the story (especially during fairly long descriptions of certain people) and I found myself on several occasions getting restless and wanting the author to return to the fire.
Drehle argues that an accelerated move to urban liberalism was one of the legacies of the fire. Tammany Hall city boss, Charles Murphy, once a steadfast supporter of the status quo, realized that reform could mean votes. The Factory Investigating Commission (formed as a result of the fire) helped transform the Democratic party by opening political doors to labor leaders (pg. 213). In fact, socialism was doomed as, in the next two decades, the Democrats co-opted many of their ideas leading to New Deal bills, many of which Wagner wrote. Reform worker and activist for the Triangle victims Frances Perkins, who earlier found Wagner and Smith more sensitive to causes like the 54-hour day than state senator Franklin D. Roosevelt, would be the first woman secretary of labor in the FDR administration. This road to progressivism would have been taken without the fire, but the fire did play an important role in giving certain people power and influence to pass many reform bills like the 54-hour day and better factory safety measures that would help future factory workers and change the face of New York's powerful Tammany Hall. Drehle's book includes coverage of the Blanck and Harris trial, a middle section of photos, and an appendix with the names of all 140 identified Triangle fire deaths.
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