https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/triangle-shirtwaist-fire-in-new-york-city?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2023-0 [login to see] 3&om_rid=
In one of the darkest moments of America’s industrial history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burns, killing 146 workers, on March 25, 1911. The tragedy led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of factory workers.
The Triangle factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, was located in the top three floors of the 10-story Asch Building in downtown Manhattan. It was a sweatshop in every sense of the word: a cramped space lined with workstations and packed with poor immigrant workers, mostly teenage women who did not speak English. At the time of the fire, there were four elevators with access to the factory floors, but only one was fully operational and it could hold only 12 people at a time. There were two stairways down to the street, but one was locked from the outside to prevent theft by the workers and the other opened inward only. The fire escape, as all would come to see, was shoddily constructed, and could not support the weight of more than a few women at a time.