Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Kills 146, Exposes Corporate Negligence

On March 25, 1911, a fire—likely sparked by a discarded cigarette—swept through the Triangle Waist Company factory on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch Building in New York City, killing 146 workers, mostly teenage Italian and Jewish immigrant girls. The victims died not from the fire itself but from criminally negligent safety practices: management locked steel exit doors from the outside to prevent workers from taking bathroom breaks and “interrupting work,” trapping them inside. The building had only one fire escape when three were required, all exits opened inward rather than outward, and the fire escape collapsed under the weight of fleeing workers. Fire department ladders reached only six stories, leaving workers on upper floors to choose between burning alive or jumping to their deaths.

The factory owners were indicted on manslaughter charges but acquitted in December 1911, demonstrating how the legal system protected corporate executives even after mass worker deaths caused by deliberate safety violations. The victims had faced grinding poverty and horrifying working conditions despite immigrating to America seeking better lives. The tragedy catalyzed Frances Perkins, who witnessed workers jumping from windows, to lead the drive for worker safety regulations. The New York state legislature created the Factory Investigating Commission in June 1911, which recommended 64 new laws between 1911 and 1913, with 60 enacted. These reforms mandated building access improvements, fireproofing requirements, fire extinguishers, alarm systems, automatic sprinklers, and limits on hours for women and children.

The Triangle fire exposed the deadly consequences of unregulated corporate power over workers’ lives and established workplace safety as a public concern requiring government intervention. Perkins became New York State Commissioner of Labor in 1929 and the first female federal cabinet official as U.S. Secretary of Labor in 1933, where she championed worker protections during the New Deal. The tragedy’s legacy culminated in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, establishing OSHA to enforce workplace safety standards. However, the pattern of corporate negligence causing worker deaths, followed by minimal accountability for executives, continues to define American labor relations—demonstrating how initial reforms are systematically weakened through regulatory capture and enforcement underfunding.