Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: March 25, 1911-2011

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers in New York City were killed in a workplace fire. Infamously, management had locked the factory's exit doors. A wave of safety reform legislation and memorialization followed. For a moment, the dangerous realities that faced some of the nation's most marginalized industrial workers -- young, female, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe -- gripped the nation's attention.

Recently brought to my attention: the New York Times has assembled extraordinary coverage of the many facets of the fire: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire/?ref=nyregion

Some particular highlights of museum-think interest:
Triangle Fire: Clinging to Scraps of Memories
Triangle Fire: A Frontier in Photojournalism (interactive)
Garment Work in New York 100 Years After the Triangle Fire (video)
In a Tragedy, a Mission to Remember
Remembering the Triangle Fire, 100 Years Later

And, last but not least, from President Obama's resolution marking today's 100th anniversary:
Despite the enormous progress made since the Triangle factory fire, we are still fighting to provide adequate working conditions for all women and men on the job, ensure no person within our borders is exploited for their labor, and uphold collective bargaining as a tool to give workers a seat at the tables of power...As we mark the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, let us resolve to renew the urgency that tragedy inspired and recommit to our shared responsibility to provide a safe environment for all American workers.

American Experience: Triangle Fire

Highly recommended! American Experience: Triangle Fire. PBS is currently streaming the entire hour-long documentrary online:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/triangle/player/

The film focuses not only on the fire itself, but on the extraordinary struggle to unionize female garment workers in the year that led up to the tragedy. One point made in the film stuck out, so much so that I wrote it down. In going out on strike to fight for improved working conditions and wages, thousands of these women "walked away from the only thing between their families and starvation" -- their dangerous, low-paid jobs.

That's what I call interpretation! A simply, evocatively made point that applies not only to this particular series of events, but that gets at the essence of Progressive Era labor struggles. Whether in New York, Lawrence, Paterson, etc., a powerful mixture of community, conviction, and desperation drove workers in this country's burgeoning industrial centers to take enormous personal risks for a chance at something better.

Art - Memory - Place

We're coming into an era of serious labor history centennials. 2011 is the centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, and the Grey Art Gallery at good old NYU just opened a really thoughtful looking exhibit dealing with the event through a somewhat unconventional mix of perspectives and media.

Art - Memory - Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (Great website.)

Part I deals with the history of the fire itself, its human impact, and the immediate social aftermath. Part II takes us into mid-20th century reforms in workplace safety as an act of memorialization. (I am excited about the apparent abundance of 1930s mural art here.) Parts III and IV deal with the fire's 50th anniversary, and its enduring legacies in labor activism, memory, and large-scale tragedy today.

Historic photos! Artifacts! Artwork! Activism! Documenting! Interpreting! Memorializing!

Making a resolution to see this before it closes March 26, the day after the tragedy's 100th anniversary.

Detail of mural by Ernest Fiene, History of the Needlecraft Industry (1938-1940)