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Who They Were:

Lower East Side

The chalk always washes awayWell always

come back next yearThats what social justice

and memory is all about. Its not like its ever over.

Ruth Sergal

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Who Chalks and Why:

Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition

The Coalition is spearheading educational,

commemorative, and memorial activities that promote

active social engagement. In concert withorganizations and individuals across the city, we are

creating a living memorial to remember not only the

people who died but the powerful social conscience

and action that their deaths inspired. The Coalitionsupports: Establishing a permanent memorial

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Where They Lived:

Lower East Side

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The Preface:

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

The shirtwaist kings," Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were called

owned the largest firm in the business. Each operator had 6

people who in effect worked for the operator at the factory.

Greenhorns mainly took these jobs since conditions at the

Triangle Shirtwaist were considered so terrible that they helped

spark the 1909 strike which lasted over 13 weeks

This became known as the Strike of 20,000 and marked the

beginnings of the ILGWU

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The Strike of 1909: Clara Lemlich

Better to Die Fast than Starve Slow

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What Happened:

Locked Doors

Assistant cashier Joseph Flecher looked down from the

tenth floor roof to see my girls, my pretty ones, going downthrough the air. They hit the sidewalk spread out and

still. Fire Chief Edward Croker told the press that doors

leading into the factory workplace appeared to be locked

and that his men had to chop their way through doors to get

at the fire. Fire Chief Croker issued a statement urging

girls employed in lofts and factories to refuse to work when

they find [potential escape] doors locked. (by Douglas Linder (c) 2002)

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What Happened:

Those Who Jumped

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The Aftermath:

The Funeral of the Unknown

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The Aftermath:

100,000 Mourners

The temporary morgue at Twenty-Sixth street had over

100,000 visitors. At an emotional protest meeting on Twenty-

Second Street four days after the fire, relatives of the dead

broke into hysterical cries of despair. People began fainting,

and over fifty persons were treated. The editor of a socialist

paper told the crowd that These deaths resulted because

capital begrudged the price of another fire escape." At CooperUnion, a banner stretching across the platform said: Locked

doors, overcrowding, inadequate fire escapes....We demand

for all women the right to protect themselves. (Douglas Linder (c) 2002)

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The Aftermath:

The Triangle Shirtwaist FireThough indicted on charges of manslaughter, the owners, Harris

and Blanck were not convicted on the grounds that they didnt

know the 9th

floor door was locked. This was despite testimonyshowing they locked it to prevent pilfering

A nine-member Factory Investigating Commission undertook a

thorough examination of safety and working conditions in New

York factories. The Commission's recommendations led to whatis called "the golden era in remedial factory legislation." During

the period 1911 to 1914, thirty-six new laws reforming the state

labor code were enacted. ( Douglas Linder (c) 2002).

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The Aftermath:

The Triangle Shirtwaist FireFrances Perkins, a Commission member who became

Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt Administration, later

stated:

Out of that terrible episode came a self-examination of stricken conscience in

which the people of this state saw for the first time the individual worth and value

of each of those 146 people who fell or were burned in that great fire...We all felt

that we had been wrong, that something was wrong with that building which we

had accepted or the tragedy never would have happened. Moved by this sense

of stricken guilt, we banded ourselves together to find a way by law to prevent

this kind of disaster....It was the beginning of a new and important drive to bring

the humanities to the life of the brothers and sisters we all had in the working

groups of these United States.

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Who Chalks and Why:

Tropes of Disaster

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Who Chalks and Why:

Outcomes of Sites of TragedyKevin Foote:

Initial outpouring of grief and stricken guilt remains

in ceremonies and laws. The building becomes a site

ofrectification, practically unmarked as blame is

detached from the site

The re-emergence of its importance as the

centennial approaches opens new possibilities

including permanent memoralizationSlow continuous emergence of retrospective

meanings allows lessons to feel vital today and

create new forms of commemoration despite general

equivocation about inscribing sites of labor history

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The Aftermath:

The Triangle Shirtwaist FireAsch Building NYUs Brown Building of Science