Fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

March 25, 1911. It’s quarter to five on a Saturday—closing time at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Someone on the cutting room floor lights a cigarette… that ignites a pile of scraps. Over the next fifteen minutes, hundreds of workers scramble to escape the top floors of this ten-story building by smoke-filled stairwell, crammed elevators, and an overloaded fire escape. 146 of them don’t make it out. How was this tragedy set in motion years before the fire itself? And how did reforms passed in the wake of the fire change the workplace for all of us?

Special thanks to our guests: Kat Lloyd, vice president of programs and interpretation at New York's Tenement Museum, and David Von Drehle, author of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:04.7	History this week, March 25, 1911.
0:13.2	I'm Sally Helm.
0:16.9	On the north side of Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan,
0:20.7	a group of ladies is sitting down to tea.
0:23.9	Mrs. Margaret Norris, wife of a wealthy banker,
0:27.0	is entertaining her friend, Francis Perkins.
0:30.3	They're probably talking about the charity work they're involved in,
0:33.2	maybe commenting on the nice weather.
0:35.2	It's beautiful outside. Spring has finally arrived.
0:40.0	Then suddenly, out the window, they hear a scream.
0:48.0	There's some kind of commotion happening on the other side of the park,
0:51.3	laring sirens, more screams.
0:54.4	The ladies leave their tea on the table and rush outside.
1:00.3	They cross the square and come upon a shocking scene.
1:06.9	The upper floors of a tall factory building are on fire.
1:11.6	They can see flames and thick suffocating smoke.
1:16.3	Then they notice what looks like a bundle of fabric being tossed out of the building
1:20.5	to the ground and realize it's something much worse.
1:26.1	The garment workers on the ninth floor of this building
1:29.3	have tried every other method of escape.
1:33.2	Now, they've been forced to the windows and they're beginning to jump.
	...

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