Resources on the Triangle Factory Fire
On jwa.org
There are several relevant articles in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia:
- Alice Kessler Harris on the Labor Movement in the United States
- An article detailing the history of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, founded in 1900, including its relation to the events surrounding the Triangle Waist Factory fire
- Hadassa Kosak on the Triangle Waist Fire
- Tony Michels on the "Uprising of 20,000 (1909)"
JWA's "Go & Learn" for 2008, "We Have Found You Wanting: Labor Activism and Communal Responsibility," includes excerpts from the speech given by Rose Schneiderman at the Triangle Factory fire protest meeting on April 2, 1911, as well as three lesson plans.
Blog posts include:
- March 25, 2008 "Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire"
- March 25, 2010 "Imagining the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire"
- February 24, 2011 "New 'Triangle Fire' film: What was Missing"
- March 2, 2011 "Discovering My Grandmother's Triangle Fire Story"
Articles
"Beyond Place and Ethnicity: The Uses of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire," originally published in Remembering the Lower East Side, edited by Hasia R. Diner, Jeffrey Shandler, and Beth S. Wenger (2000).Books
- Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965, by Annelise Orleck (1995).
- Triangle: A Novel by Katharine Weber (2006). Visit www.npr.org to hear Shelia Kast interview Weber, who also reads from the book.
- The Triangle Fire, by Leon Stein (Centennial Edition, 2011).
- Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, by David von Drehle (2003) Visit www.npr.org to hear Bob Edwards interview David von Drehle.
Elsewhere on the Web
- The Industrial Labor Relations Kheel Center at Cornell University has the most comprehensive website on the Triangle fire, including primary sources, interview, photographs, a timeline, and a detailed bibliography.
- Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: A Century Later, a website created by the Jewish Daily Forward, features archival Forverts coverage of the fire, contemporary articles on labor relations and workplace safety, and a video tour of the building that once housed the Triangle Waist Co. factory.
- The website for the film Triangle Fire, part of the PBS American Experience history series, has a timeline, primary sources, and a discussion guide for teachers.
- The Triangle Fire Open Archive is an online, participatory archive of community-contributed objects, each of which tells a portion of the story and impact of the Triangle fire and its relevance today. It is a collaboration between the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition and Buscada, an interdisciplinary practice which designs and curates projects on place and dialogue.
- "The International Ladies Garment Worker's Union Strike" page on My Jewish Learning is a reprint of an article from A History of the Jews in America (by Howard M. Sachar, 1992) that focuses on the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Strike of 1909 and gives an overview of the history of Jewish women in the American labor movement.
- American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning's "Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl" is an online collection of primary sources (including newspaper and magazine articles) song lyrics, images, and audio clips related to the 1909 shirtwaist workers' strike.
- The Famous Trials website includes a chronology of the fire, maps, and comprehensive information on the subsequent trial.
- NPR's "All Things Considered" broadcast an interview with the granddaughter of Rose Freedman, the last living survivor of the fire.
- In this blogpost, an educator from the Lower East Side Tenement Museum explains how her organization teaches about the Triangle fire—by offering a unique glimpse into the everyday lives of immigrants in New York.
- The New York Times "City Room" blog posts on the Triangle fire include "Triangle Fire: A Frontier in Photojournalism," an online exhibit about historical newspaper coverage of the fire.
- This article, which appeared in the Jewish Journal on May 15, 2011, offers a detailed history of the fire and describes how lessons learned from the 1911 tragedy are still relevant today.
- This New Republic article discusses the fire's relevance to modern labor debates, including current events in Wisconsin.
- Produced by the National Labor Committee, this video compares the tragedy of the Triangle fire with conditions in contemporary sweatshops.
We welcome your comments, stories, and, especially links to additional resources related to the Triangle Waist Company fire and the organizing that was inspired/driven by it. Please share them below.
The Factories of Lost Children NYT op-ed by Katharine Weber:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03...