All the things that we think of as, you know, worker protections just didn't exist at the beginning

of the 20th century. There was no standard work week. There was no minimum wage. There were very

few safety measures. Going to work at the turn of the 20th century was incredibly dangerous thing to do in

America.

On a warm spring day in 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirt Waste Factory in New York. Within

minutes, it engulfed the top

three stories of the factory building. 146 people died in the blaze, 123 of them young women

who worked there. It was one of the worst industrial disasters in the United States.

The fire and its aftermath would transform U.S. politics and shape the growing labor movement for decades.

But to really understand the events of 1911, we need to go back two years and tell a much larger story than that of a single factory.

In this special double episode, we'll travel to Manhattan in the early years of the 20th century. We'll look at how waves of immigrant labor shaped the city and how thousands

of young women, all garment workers, became catalysts for change. They drove the fight for

women's rights, fueled the rise of labor unions, demanded, and got progressive changes from a government that had long ignored and exploited them.

But all of this came at an enormous cost.

This is Fibernation, tales of textiles, craft, and culture.

I'm your host, Alison Kourleski.

Music tales of textiles, craft, and culture. I'm your host, Alison Kourleski. This is part one of the Triangle Shirtways Factory Fire, The Strike.

On September 10, 1909, a young woman named Clara Lemlich started down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan,

walking toward the Lower East Side. She had just left a picket line at Leiserson's clothing factory,

where she worked as a draper. The women there were on strike for better working conditions and a unionized shop, and Clara, a fiery speaker, had become one of the strike's leaders.

Two men watched her leave and then followed her. Clara was a small woman barely five feet. She had a

soft, round face, dark eyes, and curly dark hair that she cut short

...