The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in NY - Film History Livestream, Hosted by Robert Kelleman - Washington, DC History & Culture.
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The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in NY - Film History Livestream

We invite you to join us for two documentary film screenings on the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

During and after the screenings there will be opportunities to discuss the films with your fellow participants via Zoom.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers - 123 women and girls and 23 men - who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, falling, or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian or Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese.

The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, which had been built in 1901. Later renamed the "Brown Building", it still stands at 23–29 Washington Place near Washington Square Park, on the New York University (NYU) campus. The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.

Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked - practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft - many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. There were no sprinklers in the building. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

Triangle: Remembering the Fire Trailer (HBO - 40 minutes)

From Emmy - winning filmmakers Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson, this 40-minute documentary recounts the horror of March 25, 1911, when young garment workers perished in the worst industrial accident in New York City history (up until 9/11), triggering widespread reforms and ushering in the birth of modern labor movement. In addition to riveting stories of heart break and courage told by descendants of several of the fire's victims and survivors, the documentary explains how the tragedy occurred in the wake of an earlier strike (initiated by Triangle employees) that unified some 20,000 garment workers, but ended violence and few concessions by labor leaders. The Saturday afternoon fire, in which workers were literally locked inside their workspace by management apparently worried about theft, galvanized the public's outrage against big business and its treatment of employees. It also forced Tammany Hall officials to work with the fledgling International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) to enact legislation improving safety, conditions and wages for garment workers -- a trend that climaxed in New Deal reforms twenty years later, and is the foundation of today's labor standards.

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American Experience: Triangle Fire (PBS - 60 minutes)

The fire that tore through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the gruesome culmination of years of unrest in America's most profitable manufacturing industry. Two years earlier, led by a spontaneous walkout in the same factory, twenty thousand garment workers, in the largest women's strike in American history, took to the streets of New York to protest working conditions. They gained the support of both progressives and leading women in New York's high society. But it took the tragedy at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the death of one hundred and forty-eight young women and the ensuing national outrage, to force government action. From producer Jamila Wignot (Walt Whitman, Jesse James, the Massie Affair) comes Triangle Fire (wt), a one-hour film chronicling the tragedy that shook New York and forever changed the relationship between labor and industry in the United States. And it is a relationship that is still in question today as Americans.

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Your host for this program is Robert Kelleman, the founder/director of the non-profit community organizations Washington, DC History & Culture and Texas History & Culture.

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