Arguably, America as a nation has been formed by the events and people who were leaders in the past. Fire in the triangle shirtwaist company is one of the disastrous events that had major negative consequences in American history. As a matter of fact the fire at the triangle factory became an important event which led to changes in the policies formed by American government on safety of fire (Broyles, 2004). Additionally, it became a catalyst for the numerous labor reforms in America. It was on 25 March 1911, a horrible catastrophe struck the city of New York, fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist organization. The fire claimed the lives of 146 people who did not die in vain. just like any other producers of women’s clothes, Triangle Company utilized the subcontract employment system. Under this contractual system, employees were to deal unswervingly with subcontractors. Workers were paid very low salary after working for very long hours under in human working conditions. The triangle company at that moment was the biggest manufacturers of shirtwaists in New York. The workers in the company on that terribly days were girls and women from the age of 12-23 years, most of them were immigrants from Italy, Russian, Germany and Hungary. Due to their origin the workers spoke very little or none English at all (Broyles, 2004).
According to investigations the fire was caused by a lighted match. William Marshall said that the fire started when an individual threw a lighted match into either clippings or oil on the eighth floor of Greene Street. The company’s policies were clearly stated that no one was allowed to smoke inside the factory premise, despite that Beers reports affirmed that fire investigators pulled out many cases of cigarettes near the spot where fire began (Nobleman, 2008). To support the investigations, employees admitted that smoking common behavior on the company’s premises. The fire could have spread so fast because of the materials and clothing in the factory. The outcry of the public was overwhelming and immediate. Due to the triangle shirtwaist organization fire many groups were blamed for ignorance, they included ineffective fire regulation measures, corrupted insurance business as well as poor enforcement of building codes (Drehle, 2004). Above all the public pushed all the blame to the Triangle Company on the dangerous environment they expose to their employees due to dangerous and poor working conditions.
