A quick note to listeners, this episode has graphic descriptions that some people may find disturbing.

Why, given that workplaces were so dangerous at that time, and workers had so few protections,

what was it about this industrial accident that made a difference in the world when so many others had been

quickly forgotten.

March 25th, 1911 was a beautiful day in New York, the first real spring day of the year.

On that Saturday, people filled parks and public spaces as they emerged to

enjoy the sun. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory stood across the street from Washington Square

Park at the corner of Green Street and Washington Place. The park was a spot where every part of

the city seemed to come together. Immigrant workers from the Lower East Side, students at New York

University, wealthy women shopping the department stores along Broadway. Around 4.45 that afternoon,

one of the many people sitting or strolling there, a reporter named William Gunn Shepard,

saw a puff of smoke coming from the roof of the triangle building.

At the same moment, directly below the building, several people heard a small explosion.

Then glass rained down from a window many stories above.

Smoke poured out. Someone ran to a fire alarm box.

The placid day was soon shattered by the sound of sirens and bells from every direction as horse-drawn fire engines converged on the scene.

Frightened workers began to emerge from the building.

The sidewalks filled with spectators as police tried to keep the crowd back and let firemen through.

Large bundles began to fall from the windows of the ninth floor where the shirtwaists were sewn.

Look, said someone pointing up, they're trying to save the best cloth.

But then the crowd realized that those were not bundles of cloth.

William Shepard would later write,

...