Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

The factory was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, and can be easily termed as a sweat shop. The employees were all immigrant women in their teens and early twenties who were restricted to the little workspace which was mostly taken up by the large sewing machines. There were only two stairways that led to the street and one was kept locked to prevent people from escaping and also  from stealing. If all the workers could have exited down the one fire escape, it would have taken many hours, so a best case scenario was non existent. The danger of the fires were well known but no one cared or worked to fix it due to the very corrupt government and clothing industry. In addition to not placing sprinklers in the building, it seemed that Max and Isaac were guilty of starting the fire in order to collect the insurance money. They paid their workers 15$ a day when they all actually worked for over 12 hours, and when the International  Ladies Garment Workers Union held a strike for shorter hours and better pay they were in the minority of manufactures that did not comply. Instead they paid of government figures to look the other way and even hired corrupted police officer thugs to imprison the women who tried to strike. The fire started in a rag bin, and the attempt to use a hose to put it out was futile when the hose valve could not even open. Some girls threw themselves down empty elevator shafts and others were burned alive when they tried exiting down the stairwell but found out that the door was locked. In total 145 people died from this fire. On April 5 the worker's union set up a march and over 80,000 people attended.even though they were not held accountable for the fire, the massacre did compel the city to start reform measures.