To commemorate Sepia Saturday 100, a look back:
This year, thanks to the efforts of historians, artists, writers and unionists, an event was pulled from the dustbin of American history, and given a place of honor in public memory.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 1911 took the lives of 146 people, mostly Italian and Jewish women who were recent immigrants, working for low wages under shoddy conditions. The disaster galvanized the labor movement in the U.S., gave urgency to the demand for women's suffrage, and led to reforms in building and fire safety. I wrote about the anniversary earlier this year for my newspaper; you can read the article here.
Cornell University has an extraordinary archive of photos and documents about the fire. The 1911 picture of Annie Nicholas is from their web site; she died in the fire at the age of 18. There are many gruesome pictures of the fire and its aftermath; the disaster coincided with the ascendance of newspaper photography and was extremely well recorded. I chose a picture of an individual for this post, to remember the humanity behind the statistics.
The New York Times has their own excellent archive, including links to their coverage of the fire in 1911, and articles discussing the sweatshop labor we still rely on.
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That was a terrible tragedy worth remembering.
ReplyDeleteI've always been fascinated by this story. So very tragic. I love your collage.
ReplyDeleteNancy Javier
Some Very Important Links i Had Not Seen Before.Thank You.
ReplyDeleteThe sadness is such Sweat-Shops Still exist all over The World
I want to thank you for this post for so many reasons. It is a fitting tribute to an event which must never be forgotten. It is a great introduction for me to an archive I was not familiar with (the Cornell University one). And it provides a wonderful showcase for your digital collage. Thanks for supporting Sepia Saturday and thanks for sharing this post.
ReplyDeleteOh my yes, how tragic, and your presentation is excellent.....sadly those sweat-shops still survive.....thanks for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteA tragic story indeed. The fire was one of the events from 1911 that I turned up in research this week. Thanks for providing so much detail and the links.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link to Cornell's archive. Very good material there. Think of the people who are saved from danger because of the laws this event inspired.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post and for the excellent links to learn more about it. What a terrible tragedy it was.
ReplyDeleteI like to think that the tragic incident at the Arrow Shirtwaist Co. brought about much-needed change and therefore resulted in saved lives in other places. It's a shame that this sort of thing has to happen to get our attention. Poor Annie.
ReplyDeleteA horrific tragedy. I think it is important to remember the victims as people who had lives. Thank you for this post.
ReplyDeletePoor Annie, and all those others who perished in the fire. Very sad. Jo
ReplyDeleteWhat an indictment, that it takes something tragic to make us change our practices for the better, but at least the fire was a catalyst for good. In that sense, one may say that their deaths were not in vain. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that their families would have agreed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of the above. What more is there to say?
ReplyDeleteVery nice collage. I love ephemera and collage is my favorite art form.
Barbara
The difficulty that I have with Sepia Saturday is that I find the posts so fascinating, I spend many, many hours reading them, and then get distracted even further by stories such as yours of the awful tragedy in 1911, leading me to other sites, etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing the photo and collage of commemorating this tragic event. It is truly sad that we may have only shifted the location of the sweat shops.
ReplyDelete