The United States was in the midst of the "Second" Industrial Revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century and was experiencing all the benefits and pitfalls of industrialization experienced by Britain about a century ago. There was a major shift of the rural population towards sprawling urban centers. The rising tide of immigrants from Europe added to the growth of the urban cente

Eye Witness Accounts from the Outside: Most of the eyewitness accounts of the Fire from the outside, emphasize the horrible experience of watching and hearing the sound of the falling bodies from a height of about 80 feet on to the concrete pavement and street below. The longest ladder raised by the firemen could only reach up to the sixth floor, way short of the girls trapped on the 9th floor. (Shepherd, 1977, 188-90) While some of the girls who jumped out of the ninth floor were un-burnt, several others who followed later were burning torches. Still other girls had jumped down the elevator shaft to their deaths. Almost all those who jumped from the ninth floor died; only a single survivor was found close to drowning in water that had collected in the elevator shaft. ("Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire," 2005)

rs. As a result, between 1860 and 1900 alone, the number of urban areas in the United States expanded fivefold ("Industrial Revolution," 1997-2005 ). Unlimited greed of factory owners and the desperate need of immigrants for employment gave rise to the proliferation of "sweat shops" around the country in which low-paid immigrants, including women and children, worked for excessively long hours in dangerous and unsafe conditions. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, occupying the top three floors of the Asch Building located at the intersection of the Greene Street and Washington Place in New York was one such typical sweat shop. The owners of Triangle, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, employed mostly young Jewish immigrant girls in their factory and paid them about $ 6 a week for back breaking work on foot powered sewing machines from 7 o'clock in the morning to 8 o'clock at night (Frowne 1977, pp. 60-61). Part of the work was subcontracted to individuals who hired the people at even lower wages. The system of "piecework" in which the payments were linked to the output of the workers forced them to work at a break-neck speed or else they were forced to work overtime.

The horrendous working conditions at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and its practice of sub-contracting led to a spontaneous walk-out by its workers in 1909. The attempt by the owners to make a "sweet heart" deal with some of the workers led to a more widespread strike of the New York City's garment workers that became known as "the Uprising of 20,000" and lasted for 14 weeks. The strike was only partially succesful as International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) agreed to an arbitrated settlement improved some of the workers' working conditions but did not provide union recognition. ("International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union," 2005) The strike also brought the sweatshop conditions into the limelight. However, the power and clout of the business owners and the hostile attitude of the law enforcers1 towards the labor severely limited the effectiveness of organized protest by the workers. The size and power of the Triangle in the industry enabled it to resist sanitation and safety reforms, it refused to sign the arbirated agreement with the strikers, and remained a non-union shop.

It was near to closing time at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911, the afternoon of a warm spring day in New York City. At the time about 500 people worked in the factory, most of them y

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Approximate Word count = 2211
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)