by David Von Drehle
Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN# 0-8711-3874-3
Suggested Retail Price: $25.00
The workers were predominately young women whose
families had moved here form Europe. They were Jews and Italians who
arrived in America with very little money. This is their story and the
tale of the fire that changed the history of workers in America.
On March 25th, 1911 as the workers had just
finished their day working in the Triangle shirtwaist factory when fire broke
out suddenly and spread throughout the upper three floors of the
building in minutes.
Firemen who arrived on the scene were unable to
rescue anyone on the top floors because their ladders would not go up
that far. The people on the street watched as many of the workers jumped
out of the windows to their deaths. In the end, 146 people (123 of them
were women) perished during this fire.
The author takes us back in time to the streets of
New York and the workers who wanted to organize a union to ease their
long working days that were spent under terrible conditions and low
wages.
David Von Drehle brings the whole history of the
times and the people who were fighting for the right to fair wages. The
backgrounds he draws for us are the foundations upon which we are then
hurled into one of the most horrifying fires of the century.
The is an honest re-creation of the fire and the
people that were affected by the disaster.
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