The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was an industrial incident that occurred on March 25, 1911 in New York City. The factory was located in the top three floors of a building in Manhattan and was a textbook sweatshop. It was full of young immigrant women who did not speak English and would work nearly 12 hours a day. The fire began when a fire began in a rag bin and after it failed to be put out the workers began to panic and tried to leave the factory. A total of 146 workers died in the fire which could’ve been prevented if not for all of the safety violations(AFLCIO). One of these violations was in order to make sure the workers were productive and stayed in one place the owners would lock the doors. This was because the owners believed that the workers were stealing materials from the factory(Cornell). Since this was a clothing factory there were plenty of very flammable materials all over. This would’ve caused the fire to spread very fast which would cause panic. It also didn't help that the workers didn't speak English either so they wouldn’t be able to understand the directions they were being told. The fire was also very deadly as there was only one fire escape which was in terrible condition as when used to escape it began to buckle under the weight. If the necessary precautions were taken years earlier when the NY Board of Sanitary Control sent the factory a notice on its violations the fire could have been a lot less worse. After the fire happened the owners of the factory were brought to court on charges of manslaughter but were later acquitted. They actually profited from the event as their insurance paid them $60,000 at a rate of $400 per life lost(NYCData). Even today we are still seeing factory violations like the ones the Triangle Shirtwaist factory had. Just recently a team of investigators went and looked at the fast fashion company Shein. This investigation was run by Public Eye, a media company run from Switzerland. In their investigation we can see things that are very similar to how the Triangle Shirtwaist factory was run. For starters, just like the shirtwaist factory there are clothing materials all over the building they run them out of. There are bags and bags of clothes and materials so much in fact that they are blocking corridors which is a fire hazard. The conditions of the Shein factory are also relatively the same as the Shirtwaist factory. With the research done by PublicEye they have found that the shifts provided for the Shein factory equate “to over 75 working hours per week.”(PublicEye). Since Shein is a company that operates out of China they severely violate Chinese labor laws as “a working week can comprise a maximum of 40 hours, overtime cannot exceed 36 hours per month.”(PublicEye). These violations just show that sweatshops still exist and they really haven't changed at all.

Citations:

“NYCDATA: Disasters.” NYCdata | Disasters, www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/disasters/fires-triangle_shirtwaist.html. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.