The Triangle factory fire killed 146 workers
On this day · 25 March 1911
Locked doors turned a New York garment loft into a death trap in 1911, and the outrage rewrote workplace-safety law.
Near closing time on Saturday, March 25, 1911, fire broke out on the upper floors of the Asch Building in Manhattan, home to the Triangle Waist Company. Within roughly half an hour, 146 of about 500 workers were dead, most of them young immigrant women aged 14 to 23.
The disaster was so lethal because escape was nearly impossible. Doors had been locked to deter theft and unauthorized breaks, a fire escape collapsed, and an elevator soon failed. Trapped by smoke, dozens leaped from ninth-floor windows.
Witnesses on the street below watched workers jump rather than burn.
The owners were later acquitted of manslaughter. Yet the public fury proved harder to dismiss. New York convened a Factory Investigating Commission, and the tragedy drove a wave of new laws on fire exits, sprinklers, and working conditions that reshaped American labor protections for the century to come.
Sources & references
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