The Triangle Factory Fire-The Disaster That Changed America

The Triangle fire happened on March 25, 1911. It was the deadliest workplace disaster in New York for nearly a century. This wasn.t the first garment factory fire in NYC at that time. In fact the owners of the Triangle had several previous fires, almost always coinciding with then end of the fashion season, when having leftover inventory was bad for business.Several decades prior to the fire, such fire safety innovations (sprinklers, fire doors and many more) and been effectively put into action in New England cotton mills, the use of such innovations was rare in the garment factories of NYC at the time. Fires tended to get paid off by insurance, insurance brokers found ways to make money despite the fires and the political machine Tammany Hall certainly was not helping matters.Yet a series of very unlikely events made the aftermath of the Triangle Fire different. Women union organizers, such as Clara Lemlich, and politicians, such as Francis Perkins, who became the first woman US cabinet member, as Secretary of Labor, through continued hard work and resilience, were able to influence Tammany Hall help push through laws in NYC. These were laws such as child labor laws , minimum wage laws, working hours laws and the right for women to vote.These laws moved from New York onto the rest of the U.S.The high levels of corruption, grifting and graft were minimized to the extent possible, at least for the time being.#History #trianglefire #suffragists #America