Opener I am going to offer all of you a job so that you can start making your own money. You will be working 11 to 14 hours per day and 7 days a week. You will be earning a fair wage of $6.00 per week. Just think within a year you will have $312 to spend on clothes, shoes, food and IPods. Will you accept this job? Why or why not? Please explain your answer in 1 paragraph.

Industrial Work What do you notice in the image of garment workers?

How big was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory? –Largest Shirtwaist Factory in the country The Rise of Big Business

Strike 1909 National Women’s Trade Union of America –20,000 women –Picketing in front of the companies –Over 700 women arrested –Factory workers fought back by prohibiting leaving the production floor

Why was the Asch Building unsafe for the workers in the Triangle Factory? –Only had two narrow staircases doors opened inward, not outward –Doors were locked

Improved Technology What technological advances were used in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory? –Electric motors –Division of Labor –Electric freight elevators –Telephone

Working Conditions What were working conditions like in factories? –Low wages –Child Labor –Crowded Conditions –Uncomfortable Temperatures –Fire Dangers What were working conditions like in the Triangle Factory? –Same as above –Workers charged for supplies –Prohibited from leaving the factory floor

Background Info Building was a fire trap –Was built to a 10 year old fire code Warned multiple times about violations Were not educated on building codes

Started at about 4:30 –Lasted less than 30 minutes Largest industrial disaster in New York history. –146 dead 26 under the age of 18 –The youngest was 11 The Fire

The fire began on the 8 th floor –The ninth floor was not warned in time, so this is where many of the deaths occurred. Escape methods were unsatisfactory. –Two elevators, two stair cases and a single fire escape –All doors were locked during work hours to prevent striking.

The dead overflowed the morgue –The excess were taken to a nearby pier 139 Identified bodies 7 left unknown –Only a few survivors were found and most died in the hospital. Mass mourning services were held There was a protest and a trial. The Aftermath

Triangle Shirtwaist-coat Factory Fire

Triangle Factory Eyewitness "Eyewitness at the Triangle" by William G. Shephard I was walking through Washington Square when a puff of smoke issuing from the factory building caught my eye. I reached the building before the alarm was turned in. I saw every feature of the tragedy visible from outside the building. I learned a new sound--a more horrible sound than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone sidewalk. Thud—dead, thud—dead, thud—dead, thud—dead. Sixty-two thud—deads. I call them that, because the sound and the thought of death came to me each time, at the same instant. There was plenty of chance to watch them as they came down. The height was eighty feet. The first ten thud—deads shocked me. I looked up—saw that there were scores of girls at the windows. The flames from the floor below were beating in their faces. Somehow I knew that they, too, must come down, and something within me—something that I didn't know was there—steeled me. I even watched one girl falling. Waving her arms, trying to keep her body upright until the very instant she struck the sidewalk, she was trying to balance herself. Then came the thud--then a silent, unmoving pile of clothing and twisted, broken limbs. As I reached the scene of the fire, a cloud of smoke hung over the building.... I looked up to the seventh floor. There was a living picture in each window—four screaming heads of girls waving their arms. "Call the firemen," they screamed—scores of them. "Get a ladder," cried others. They were all as alive and whole and sound as were we who stood on the sidewalk. I couldn't help thinking of that. We cried to them not to jump. We heard the siren of a fire engine in the distance. The other sirens sounded from several directions. "Here they come," we yelled. "Don't jump; stay there."

What did labor unions do to improve working conditions? –Unions went on strike –Employers fired union workers and hired guards to protect strikebreakers What happened at the Triangle Factory when owners refused to bargain with unions for better working conditions? –146 workers died because they could not escape a fire that started in the factory Labor Unions

Why would women (of the time) put up with this? Would women today put up with this? Are women putting up with this today?