Essay On The Triangle Waist Factory

The Triangle Waist Factory was a three story building on top of the Asch Building, occupied with around 500, mostly female, workers from 16 to 23 years of age, this was recorded by the New York Times newspaper.[1] Even though in the building, the workers were spaced very poorly, barely a few feet away from each other, working in rough conditions, there was no worry of a fire, the building was fireproof. The owners of the factory, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck put their full trust in this fact. It was March 25, 1911, the workers hurried to finish the cloths before a handful of minutes before closing time (4 pm) in the factory, a fire started on the eighth floor and within minutes, it confined to the eighth, ninth, and the tenth floor of the building. Leon Stein, the author of The Triangle Fire, wrote that outside of the factory, “many had heard the muffled explosion and looked up to see the puff of smoke coming out of an eighth-floor window.” [2] The workers, on the top floors, had very few options to escape the flames since there was only one fire escape in the building, the windows and the exit doors were locked. The owners of the factory locked the windows and exit
Two law students, Charles Kremer and Elias Kanter attempted to help the stranded victims.“Kanter and the other students dragged two short ladders to the roof of the law school” they made an extension, by connecting the two shorter ladders together and “Kremer got down on to the roof of the burning building and tried to get the girls… and send them up the ladder” to safety.[4] By using this technique, these students managed to save 150 workers away from the fire. By the end of the fire, one hundred and forty-eight workers died, though one hundred and forty-one of them were instantly killed from: “leaps from the windows and down elevator shafts, or by being smothered. Seven died in the