[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 56 (Friday, April 15, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E743]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


         REFLECTS ON THE 100th ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRIANGLE FIRE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROSA L. DeLAURO

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 15, 2011

  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, from Wisconsin to Washington, we are at a 
crossroads right now about the kind of America we want to be. At this 
important moment, it would do us well to reflect on our shared past, 
when our nation reached a similar crossroads--after the Triangle 
Shirtwaist Fire, one of the worst industrial accidents in American 
history, which occurred a century ago last month.
  I say ``accident,'' but really there was more at work here. If you do 
not know the story, the Triangle Fire resulted in the death of 146 
garment workers--17 men and 129 women--most of them young immigrant 
women under the age of 25. In the months before the fire--until they 
successfully struck for shorter hours and better pay--they had been 
working 13-hour days, and getting paid 13 cents an hour.
  The fire happened in a garment factory that took up the eighth, 
ninth, and tenth floors of a New York City building, one with poor 
ventilation and no real safety measures in place. When the fire 
started, likely due to a cigarette or match, the owners of the Triangle 
Company were notified by phone and escaped.
  But nobody told the workers. And so, when the fire began to rage, 
these women could not get out. Fire blocked many of the exits, and one 
of the main stairways had been locked shut by the Triangle Company--the 
foreman with the key had also left. And so many women tried to escape 
by jumping to their deaths. Those who did not leap burned.
  The Triangle Fire was a nightmare that unfolded before the entire 
nation. Because of this tragedy, church leaders called for a renewed 
commitment to the principles of social justice, known as the Social 
Gospel. And a generation of progressives was moved to reform. Within 
three years, 36 new state laws passed to regulate fire safety and 
workplace safety, and New York became a model for the nation.
  Because of the Triangle Fire, all of America saw firsthand what 
happens when women and workers are left without basic protections. And 
we as a people realized that government has an important role to play 
in ensuring the life, health, and dignity of workers.
  That is why I am concerned about the many attempts by the majority to 
cut basic protections, or to see the assaults on employees' rights 
taking place in states like Wisconsin and Ohio. We know where all of 
this leads--Our nation has lived it, a century ago.
  Before us are two different visions of America. I know which I want 
to live in, and which I want to strive for.

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