Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

In the aftermath of the Triangle fire, labor leaders and socialists argued that the tragedy proved that “no one would protect the workers but the workers themselves” (171). They suspected that what happened following previous disasters would happen again: There would be widespread shock and outrage, and those in power would pay lip service to the need for reform while waiting for the tragedy to be forgotten. New York district attorney Charles Seymour Whitman, an ambitious politician who knew how to generate positive press, was among the first to recognize the political implications of the fire. Whitman, who arrived at the scene just as firefighters were getting the blaze under control, realized that New Yorkers “would demand that someone, or some agency, be held accountable” (178). While many in the crowd that day thought that the fire department should have done more, Whitman knew that he would have to go after either the city’s building department or the owners of the factory.

By March 30, the final victim died in the hospital, bringing the death toll to 146, but it took nearly a full week to identify all the bodies. Von Drehle argues that “questions of how the victims died, who was to blame, and what was to be done all blurred with each passing day” (184).