 It is Saturday the 25th of March 1911 and workers file into the cramped ash building in downtown Manhattan for another long and poorly paid day of work. For some 500 people reporting to work that day, this mainly consists of newly immigrated women from Italian and Jewish backgrounds. The hours, low pay and type of work rarely attract established people from within the city. And because of this, they are treated by their employers with suspicion. As such, the top three floors of the 10-storey building, which formed the factory, had their staircase doors locked. This apparent normal practice in the industry helped prevent the workers from stealing some paid break time, or even worse, pocket some product. The work is the making of shirt wastes, the bodice of a dress, or for a blouse or women's shirt. Smoking inside the factory is banned as just a small ember can result in flames amongst the cut fabric. The workers that day would soon become the unwitting martyrs for workers' rights, as in the late afternoon the triangle factory would burst into flames. The resulting inferno would burn the event into American history as one of the country's worst industrial disasters, and even to today still holds New York City's worst industrial catastrophe death toll. Today we're looking at the triangle shirt waste disaster, and I'm going to rate it here seven on my disaster scale, but here eight on my historical legacy scale. Let's see if you will agree with my ratings. At a turn of the 20th century, New York City is seeing a boom in economic and architectural advancement. The city, for many, is their first experience of the United States. Each individual of the shuffling masses wants to fulfill the American dream, and create a better life for themselves as back home, poverty and persecution was what many could have expected. But a new life in a new world offered hope. To many industry owners, these new foreign workers offered an opportunity, cheap labor. One such industry which found the cost-effective manpower of immigration was the textile industry, and many garment factories sprung up. One such was the triangle waste company based in the ash building in Manhattan, New York City. But before we look at the company, we need to have a quick look at the building in which they operated in. The building work for the ash building began in 1900. It was to be a steel-framed 10-storey high structure. The design is very much an icon of New York architecture, Neo Renaissance, and was quickly completed in 1901. The building boasted what the owners, Max Blank and Isaac Harris, claimed was fireproof rooms. This drew in garment workers as fire was a big concern in the industry, with fine-cut fabric being like a tinderbox if exposed to too much heat. The building had a number of questionable features, only a single fire escape, poorly lit stairwells, and a lack of landings. Furthermore, as more garment manufacturing ramped up and ventilation became more stifled, temperatures ranged from boiling to freezing. There was no set limits to numbers of people per room, leading to cramped conditions where workers jostled for space amongst the heavy sewing machinery. Inadequate toilet facilities were afforded to the staff, which resulted in horrendously unsanitary conditions. And all this was compounded by employers locking their staff in on the shop floor during the working day. The city had allowed the ash building to only have two staircases, one to Green Street and another to Washington Place, in exchange for building an exterior metal fire escape. In order to not accrue more costs in construction, the staircase was made of flimsy iron, and when unmaintained quickly became weakened by the elements. The working week for a triangle waste employee was a brutal 52 hour affair, with an hourly rate of around $4 in today's money. This involved a 6 day working week consisting of 5 9 hour days followed by a 7 hour Saturday. Many of the 500 employees were women ranging from the ages of 14 to their 40s, although the average age was closer to their mid 20s. Max Blank and Isaac Harris's business model involved subcontracting work out under the one company umbrella, triangle waste. Subcontracting was beneficial to the owners as it allowed them to pocket the profit without much of the risk. You see the subcontractors did the hiring, firing and paying of the company's workers, which allowed the wages to be set at rock bottom levels, as each contractor pocketed cash along the way up to Max Blank and Isaac Harris. It seemed like change was on the horizon for the industry after a walkout in 1909 at the triangle waste factory and in 1910 the cloakmaster strike. The latter enabled a grievance procedure for garment workers and a number of new unions were set up to investigate and fight poor working conditions, but unscrupulous employers ignored any complaints and that was the story at the ash building. Poor fire controls, lack of regular inspections and dangerously stored flammable inventory. As an effort to stop fires, smoking was banned on the shop floor, however some still snuck in puffs under their coats as they worked, which leads us to 1911 and the event that shocked the city and the country. As the Saturday shift came to an end on the 25th of March, a flame appeared in one of the wooden buckets used to store offcuts of fabric on the 8th floor. Around 1640 the flaming buckets spat out ignited debris into the room, setting the hanging garments ablaze. By now stopping the fire was too late, the floor filled with thick smoke as panic spread amongst the workers. A bookkeeper managed to telephone up to the 10th floor to warn of the unfolding catastrophe, but was unable to contact the people on the 9th. The first sign of disaster reared its head on the 9th floor as the flames burst into the Green Street stairway blocking escape. You see, the floor had a number of exits, including two freight elevators, a fire escape, and stairways down to Green Street and Washington Place. The door to the Washington Place stairway was locked by management as part of their theft prevention scheme. The foreman, who held the key, had escaped before the fire had consumed the 9th floor. The Green Street staircase, now completely engulfed with flames, left only the fire escape and elevator shaft as an option for the stranded workers. Lyft operators Joseph Zito and Gasper Mortarillo continued to ferry people off the 9th floor until heat buckled the rails. As the panic staff gathered on the exterior fire escape, under the weight and heat of the fire, the poorly built structure collapsed, sending 20 hurtling into the pavement below. This left the stranded workers nowhere to go, but to wait for rescue or the flames. The fire department was quick to arrive on the scene, but was now adequately prepared for a fire on a tall building. The provided ladders failed to reach the 9th floor, leaving little way of escape and hardly a fighting chance for extinguishing the fire. With ever-decreasing options, some decided to jump out of the windows and down the elevator shaft, rather than face the flames. The ground around the ash building was littered with 62 dead bodies, leaving a horrific spectacle for the bystanders on the streets surrounding the inferno. The fire eventually subsided, but left a terrifying death toll in its wake. It is estimated that 146 people perished, 23 men and 123 women. The bodies of the victims were taken for identification to charities here. Examination discovered most has succumbed to smoke inhalation, burns and blunt force trauma. The dead, due to their varying religious and ethnic backgrounds, would be interred around the city in a total of 16 cemeteries. The event shook the city and caused outrage amongst the working classes, as well as the upper echelons of society. Unsurprisingly, the company owners were not amongst the dead as they had escaped onto the roof. But in the wake of the tragedy, they were arrested and tried for manslaughter, and indicted on the 11th of April. Although the terrible working conditions should have been criminal, the trial came down to whether the two men knew that the staircases were locked. The trial would last 23 days, and after a brilliant defence orchestrated by Max Stauer, the two men were acquitted of all charges on the 27th of December. The defence lawyer had planted enough doubt in the minds of the jury as to whether the owners were aware of the policy of locking the staff in. It was likely that they did know, but it was impossible to prove. A civil suit would eventually be brought to the men, which they lost, and had to pay out a grand sum of $75 per life in 1914. The two men would not change their ways, as in 1913, their replacement factory was found yet again to be flaunting the rules. When city inspectors looked at the new premises, they found it not to be fireproof, without fire escape, and without adequate exits. The two were fined a minimum amount, and yet again they continued to ignore the minimum fire regulations. In August of 1913, Max Blank was charged with locking one of the doors of his factory during working hours. He was brought to court, fined a measly $20, and given an apology from the judge for the imposition. And this was not unique within the industry, where workers were seen as a mere cheap commodity to be exploited. But the shock of the ease in which the 146 died, and the apparent even easier way in which the owners shirked responsibility, led to outrage across the city. The outrage turned into action, and workers' union memberships in the industry grew rapidly. The public grief-stricken gathered in churches, synagogues, and eventually in the streets. But it didn't just end with workers self-organising. The city implemented new laws initially aimed at fire-related issues, such as better building access, and egress fire-proofing requirements, the availability of fire extinguishers, and the installation of fire alarm systems, but would eventually expand to better eating and toilet facilities, and limiting the number of hours that women and children could work. The Triangle Waste Company would continue until 1918, when it would be disbanded. But what of the cause of the fire? Well, eyewitness reports pointed the location of the fire to the wooden bin. The fire marshal thought the likely culprit to be a discarded cigarette or a match. But another cause has to be addressed, and that is of arson. The industry had a worrying trend when a type of garment went out of fashion. Suspiciously, factories tended to start to catch on fire, followed by rather quickly a large insurance claim. Interestingly, contemporary insurance journals placed wastes as losing popularity within the fashion industry. But we will never know for sure as this line of inquiry was never pursued, which is not surprising considering the criminal trials outcome. This video is a Plain Difficult Production. All videos on the channel are Creative Commons attribution share alike licensed. The Plain Difficult Videos are produced by me, John, and are currently wet and windy south-east in the corner of London, UK. 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