Triangle The Fire That Changed America Summary

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In Triangle The Fire That Changed America Von Drehle takes the deadliest industrial disastor in 1911 to convey the horrific, violent and brutal periods in American labor history. The book is about the horric fire that broke out in a New York garment factory on March 25, 1911. The arthour discusses in detailed on how The Triangle shirtwaist Fire was responsible in the 146 lives lost resulting mostly young immigrant women. He also emphasizes on the cultural, social, and poor working conditions struggles of the early 20th century. The majority of the workers were often young immigrants Russions, Germans, Jewish, and Italians as young as ten years old. They worked hard six even seven days out of the week sewing shirtwaist earning about seven to …show more content…
During the early 1900's the life of a woman was difficult. It was very uncommon for a woman to hold a job ,if they did have one it was usually working in a factory or department store but the working conditions were very poor and dangerous. Drehle does an exellent job of portraying many diffrent perspectives of the labor movement and women suffrage in the early 1900's. The working condtions were bad. Workers were getting locked in rooms, they were replaced if they were hurt or sick, and were underpaid and overworked.The arthor gives the readers an inside look of a traditional day working in the factory. During the fire men were able to escape to the roof since they work on the top level but didnt bother to open the doors for the other workers and left them trapped inside. "But eventually there was just the locked door. The other exit was blocked by fire,the elevators couldn't run,the fire escape had collapsed... and there were two horrible choices left: to jump out the windows or to die in the fire" People ay that the fire was probably caused by a cigarette thrown into some clothes wraps. Drehle says," It goes off like a firebomb." The fire was so big even the fire department couldn't take out the fire on time and all people could do is stand back and watch this horrific

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