Analysis Of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

Introduction & Background
The book selected for this analysis is entitled, “Triangle: The Fire that Changed America” by David von Drehle, which was published in Washington D.C. by Grove Press in 2004. Drehle starts by providing a succinct background of the living and working situation of people working at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Drehle takes time to exposition to the readers the prevailing circumstances that led to an upsurge in the number of child-age men and women to enroll for work in poorly paying and dilapidated facilities. Furthermore, most of these individuals working at the Triangle Shirtwaist were immigrants that were arriving in large drones from different parts of the world, especially from the European region. Most of these
The fire escape route was a shoddy piece of work given that it could only hold a handful of individuals at a go. When the fire emerged, many tried to use that fire escape route, but the stairs collapsed under the weight of the escapees. Many were left trapped on the top floors of the facility following the collapse. With no other tangible escape route available, the women started to jump from the ninth and tenth floors of the building to the firefighters’ rescue blankets. However, the speed and weights of the jumpers overwhelmed the blankets that got torn. All 61 women who jumped slammed the concrete floor below and died instantly.
Description of the Fire
The exact cause of the fire remained unknown, but speculations were that the fire might have been started by a cigarette. Another version of the story was that Blanck and Harris, who were the owners of the factory, deliberately started the fire so that they could collect hefty insurance money (Stein 87). After all, this phenomenon of deliberately torching a structure to collect fire-insurance policies was common in the early years of
Thanks, partly to the 1911 tragedy, the building codes and safety regulations therein have been improved significantly. The current building code requires that all escape routes to be kept clear of anything that would potentially block an escape attempt. Many buildings today regularly test their fire response mechanisms through emergency drills. It is a requirement that all high-rise buildings have dedicated fire escape routes, which remain open at all times. All doors are als supposed to remain at all times during the working hours to facilitate escape in case of an emergency. Moreover, current building codes require that a fire alert system be installed to ensure that evacuation takes the shortest time possible before the fire becomes uncontrollable. This 1911 fire tragedy led to the creation of the Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law. Today’s buildings are safer because of the numerous drills that are carried out. Secondly, today’s buildings are safer because of the building standards set by the