A little more than three months before my father was born in 1911, a tragic and unforgettable fire in New York City’s garment district resulted in 146 deaths (mostly women). Little known to the textile workers located in the uppermost reaches of a building, managers had locked them in. It is assumed that someone threw a lit cigarette in a bin of scrap fabric which soon ignited into a haze of flame and smoke. Fire engines arrived on the scene, but alas, their ladders would not reach the height needed to be of any assistance. Rather than be burned alive, people began jumping, and with thud after thud, their dead bodies littered the sidewalk. This tragedy resulted in better labor laws but not without the cost of the loss of human life.
The date all of this occurred was March 25, 1911. I remember discussing the incident with Joan Kiplinger who was always a fan of anything called a textile and who loved learning about types of fabrics and the mills that produced them. She recommended a book which I read, cover to cover. It is riveting. The name of it is Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle. This book is totally worthwhile.
If you prefer to read an overview of the incident online, you might want to view the information offered at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_file I appreciate Joan for having brought this topic to my attention, long before she passed on.
For many reasons, I am happy to be living today and not in the age of the mill workers who had to endure criminal conditions that jeopardized their health. Often, they died of consumption (TB), as a result of ingesting all of the cotton linters flying around in the air, as well as being exposed to very humid conditions within walls whose windows were sealed shut. If you have teenagers who whine about doing an actual chore around the house, remind them for me that children in the past had life FAR WORSE, and so did women.
