Title: BOOK REVIEWS – “Triangle: The Fire That Changed America”
Author:
Section/SPIG: Occupational Health and Safety
Issue Date:
David Von Drehle (2003). Triangle: The Fire that Changed America. New York: Grove Press. $14.00 paperback. ISBN 0-8021-4151-X.
Katherine H. Kirkland, MPH
Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics
1010 Vermont Ave., NW #513
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 347-4976
(888) 347-AOEC (2632)
http://www.aoec.org
If there is anyone in the Occupational Health Section who doesn’t know the basics of the 1911 Triangle Fire they absolutely need to read this book. However, even those of us who think we know the story can benefit greatly by reading David von Drehle’s account. Von Drehle gives the tragedy faces, a prelude and follows the aftermath. Perhaps as important to all of us with more work and more articles to read than we have time for, this is not just a book we should read, this is a book that is very well written.
The book starts with a short prologue for those who have no idea what the Triangle Fire was but then moves to set the stage for the tragedy that follows. Von Drehle provides the context explaining the political atmosphere at the time, how the trade unions had been working to organize the Triangle Factory, and where the workers came from and how they ended up in New York City. Von Drehle tells of the intermingling of the suffragette movement with the burgeoning labor movement among women workers. While well intentioned, there was an overwhelming clash of priorities between the elite of New York society and poor immigrants with strong socialist politics.
Von Drehle gives a good description of all the major characters that were involved directly in the tragedy, the workers who died, the owners of the factory, the workers who survived and the people who tried to help on that fateful day. Much of the biographical information on the workers comes from “Report of the Joint Relief Committee.” He was also able to read the one known remaining transcript of the trial of Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, the owners of the Triangle Factory. He also gives great credit to Leon Stein, author of “The Triangle Fire” who based his book not only on the trial testimony but the series of interviews he had conducted with 25 survivors of the fire still alive in the 1950s. Blanck and Harris were not good employers by even the low standards of the time. However, in von Drehle’s story, they are portrayed as humans with their own problems and views.
The book also delves into the political actions following the fire. A number of then-young politicians worked after the fire to promote worker safety. Frances Perkins, who became Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt Administration, was a witness to the fire. She worked with Al Smith, later governor of New York and presidential candidate. Finally, for those who follow politics, what story of turn of the century politics in New York would be complete without the movers and shakers of Tammany Hall?
As with any book about a tragedy, it isn’t a “fun” read, but it is what my favorite English teacher referred to as a “good” read.
Book Review: OH&S laws were born in flames by Kathy Hall
<kjhall@u.washington.edu>
Many of today’s occupational safety and health standards can trace their heritage to a spring day in 1911 when 146 workers – mostly young women – perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. It was the worst workplace disaster in New York City history until Sept. 11, 2001.
Von Drehle’s vivid writing weaves the lives of immigrant workers and greedy bosses, the media, a nascent labor movement, machine politics, and the horrific fire into a reform movement that gave birth to national standards.
The reforms came too late for the 146 young women and men who leapt to their deaths or burned alive in a ninth-floor sweatshop in New York’s Greenwich Village. Many were immigrants who had never practiced a fire drill. When they tried the front stairway, they found the door locked. The fire escape collapsed under their weight. The fire department’s tallest ladder trucks reached only to the seventh floor. Von Drehle outlines the Tammany Hall politics that led the New York legislature to create The Factory Commission of 1911. Sen. Robert Wagner and Assemblyman Alfred E. Smith – the “Tammany Twins” – headed the commission. They pushed through 25 bills recasting the labor law of the nation’s largest state. Automatic sprinklers were required in high-rise buildings. Fire drills were made mandatory. Doors had to be unlocked and had to swing outward. Other laws enhanced protections for women and children. The state Department of Labor was completely reorganized. The national Democratic Party incorporated the commission’s reforms into its platform.
It is easy for us to forget the tragedies that gave birth to today’s occupational safety and health legislation. Von Drehle’s well-researched historical account provides a needed reminder.