The bodies of seamstresses, who jumped from the factory floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company  to avoid being burned alive, lie outside the building

Despite a good deal of evidence that the owners and management had been horribly negligent in the fire, a grand jury failed to indict them on manslaughter charges.

Added to this delinquency were Blanck and Harris’ notorious anti-worker policies. Their employees were paid a mere $15 a week, despite working 12 hours a day, every day. When the International Ladies Garment Workers Union led a strike in 1909 demanding higher pay and shorter and more predictable hours, Blanck and Harris’ company was one of the few manufacturers who resisted, hiring police as thugs to imprison the striking women, and paying off politicians to look the other way.

Within 18 minutes, it was all over. Forty-nine workers had burned to death or been suffocated by smoke, 36 were dead in the elevator shaft and 58 died from jumping to the sidewalks. With two more dying later from their injuries, a total of 145 people were killed by the fire. The workers union set up a march on April 5 on New York’s Fifth Avenue to protest the conditions that had led to the fire; it was attended by 80,000 people.

Shepherd’s description is difficult to read, and it is perhaps why this tragedy is so particularly heartbreaking to me. He continues, “There was plenty of chance to watch them as they came down. The height was eighty feet…I even watched one girl falling. Waving her arms, trying to keep her body upright until the very instant she struck the sidewalk, she was trying to balance herself.”

As the eighth floor darkened with smoke and the heat rose, manager Samuel Bernstein got the firehose. It was supposed to be connected to a large tank on the roof, but it wasn’t. He lost three to four minutes of precious time while he tried to get water to come out. Only five to six minutes after coming to life, the fire had consumed most of the eighth floor – more than 9,000 sq. ft.

The fire quickly grew from the scrap bin and licked at the hanging patterns. As the patterns dropped onto the tables, they ignited the fabric that had been left for Monday morning. There was a firestorm effect where small pieces of burning fabric flew in tornado-like funnels around the room, catching everything in their path on fire. The 180 women who worked on the eighth floor were already lined up at the Greene Street elevators, where they had to wait at wooden partitions to be inspected for theft. Panic rippled through the women as they noticed the smoke and flames beginning in the corner of the room. Some rushed the partition and shouted. Some sprinted to the Washington Place exit. Some ran to the fire escape. Some tried to put the fire out with water pails. But flames just got stronger.

Two years before the fire, Triangle workers—many of whom worked 12 hours a day, six days a week—had gone on strike against the Triangle factory and its owners, asking for a 52-hour workweek. Some of their demands were met.

It was one of the deadliest workplace disasters in American history, killing 146 people, most of them young immigrant women and children, in a New York City clothing factory.

On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a little before 5 p.m., workers were getting ready to leave when someone on the eighth floor alerted the manager, Samuel Bernstein, that a fire had broken out in a fabric cutter's scrap bin. Investigators later concluded that someone—a person never identified conclusively—tossed a smoldering match or cigarette butt into a container filled with highly flammable cotton and tissue paper on a floor filled with similarly stuffed bins.

Esther Harris had been listed as a victim of the Triangle Fire – but actually survived. This article from the New York Times, “Cures Girl Victim of Triangle Fire”, is dated April 8, 1913 (the doctor used what was a very new technique back then……traction.)

Esther Harris had been listed as a victim of the Triangle Fire – but actually survived. This article from the New York Times, “Cures Girl Victim of Triangle Fire”, is dated April 8, 1913 (the doctor used what was a very new technique back then……traction.)

Esther Harris had been listed as a victim of the Triangle Fire – but actually survived. This article from the New York Times, “Cures Girl Victim of Triangle Fire”, is dated April 8, 1913 (the doctor used what was a very new technique back then……traction.)

Overworked and underpaid,  garment workers struck Triangle in the fall of 1909.  Management responded by hiring prostitutes to "strike women"  and thugs and plainclothes detectives "to hustle them off to court on flimsy pretexts," according to an article in Survey magazine. The strike soon spread to other shirtwaist manufacturers. By Christmas, 723 employees had been arrested, but the public largely sided with labor.  After thirteen weeks, the strike ended with new contracts establishing a 52-hour maximum work week and wage increases of 12 to 15%.

Many pointed fingers at New York City's Building Department, blaming it for an inadequate inspection of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory.  District Attorney Charles Whitman called for "an immediate and rigid" investigation to determine whether the Building Department "had complied with the law." Coroner Holtzhauser, sobbing after his inspection of the Asch Building, declared: "Only one little fire escape! I shall proceed against the Building Department along with the others.  They are as guilty as any." Defending the Department against charges he called "outrageously unfair," Borough President George McAneny said the building met standards when plans were filed for it eleven years earlier, and that the Department was seriously understaffed and underfunded and rarely had time to look at buildings except those being constructed.

Within two days after the fire, city officials began announcing preliminary conclusions concerning the tragic fire.  Fire Marshal William Beers stated that the fire probably began when a lighted match was thrown into either waste near oil cans or into clippings under cutting table No. 2 on the Greene Street side of the eighth floor.  Despite an announced policy of no smoking in the factory, Beers reported that fire investigators picked up many cigarette cases near the spot of the fires origin, and that many employees reported that smoking on the premises was commonplace.  Fire Chief Edward Croker told the press that doors leading into the factory workplace appeared to be locked and that his men had to chop their way through doors to get at the fire.

For the women who had run to the fire escape, the route down was terrifying. The landings and sloping stairs were wide enough for only one woman at a time. The fire escape ended over a basement skylight in an airshaft enclosed on all sides by the three buildings that occupied the city block. Realizing this, one woman opened the sixth floor shutters and broke through the window. Women followed her lead and ran to the stairwell on that floor only to find the doors locked. But they were the lucky ones. They were later rescued by a police officer who heard them pounding on the door. The fire escape soon collapsed taking dozens of women with it.

Nearly 30,000 Americans commit suicide every year. In the U.S., suicide rates are highest during the spring. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15 to 24-year-olds and 2nd for 24 to 35-year-olds. On average, 1 person commits suicide every 16.2 minutes.

People think of you often. They think of you fondly. They think the world of you. There are office managers and baristsas that think about you. There are Facebook friends you haven’t seen in 15 years and weirdos in your building that think about you. There are dentists and high school lab partners that think about you. They would be devastated to hear the news of your death. They would mourn you. They are people that would be uncomfortable ever telling you how highly or how often they thought of you and vice versa because we live in a world that eschews intimacy and affection in favor of the allegedly “comfortable” distance we choose to keep that is actually making a large portion of the population feel cripplingly lonely. 

I find it similarly difficult to contemplate the grief that friends and siblings and lovers would experience with my passing

People in emergency rooms are usually people who attempted suicide on impulse, in temporary despair or anger. Many decide later that it was a mistake.

About thirty thousand people kill themselves in the United States each year. An estimated ten to forty times that number try to kill themselves but don't die, either because they don't really want to die or because they don't know how

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