American Experience: Triangle Fire

Unbelievable story of the terrible working conditions for young women/girls employed by this garment manufacturer in NYC in the early 20th Century. The terror and suffering of these young (mostly immigrant) women was horrendous. The two male owners of the company collected on their insurance and never were prosecuted.

Do NOT buy this film thinking you'll get a complete overview of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire or Strikes. You won't.I first learned about the Triangle *Fires* when I was ten years old. (The company had a history of suspicious fires in the years leading up to the tragedy -- almost always at the end of the busy season.) My father -- a member of *management* -- felt the Triangle was an important part of labor history. He said: "Remember the Triangle Fire, Kayla. If you work in a factory, always know where your exits are every moment of every day. If you feel a threat, don't wait. Go!" I was given a copy of Leon Stein's book about the Triangle Fire when I was relearning how to read after a brain injury. The voices of the men and women who survived the fire came alive again for me, because I already knew their names and their words from the First Edition. Their names, their stories of survival and of loss touched me deeply as a child and still do. As a former Union member and as an historian, I was very pleased that American Experience was doing an episode about the Triangle Strike and Fire.And then, I watched the film. Words that *belonged* to actual people aren't credited except rarely and then only in the Closed Captioning. The narration speaks of immigrant women shirtwaist workers who banded together and went on strike for better working conditions and wages. (The film HAD to mention Clara Lemich, whose powerful speech helped begin the strike. It also mentioned the wealthy women who helped back the strikers. Money talks, one guesses.) The strikers themselves were beaten and horribly mistreated by paid-off police; and they stood firm. They struck for shorter working hours and better working conditions and workplace safety. They struck for *us* and to make our work lives better. (They did. But only after the Triangle Fire killed 146 of them. After the Triangle Fire, laws changed.) I was appalled by this so-called history of the Strike and Fire. There are few stories of the individual workers. Even beloved Mary Leventhal (Laventhal), who died on the Ninth Floor, goes nameless, except for the mention of how her body was identified. Her name is known; the dentist's name is known (Dr. J Zaharia); the name of the man who identified her is known (Joseph Flecher.) And yet this program chose to make her nameless. Why? It would have taken so little to make this a great piece of history -- and to give us Mary's story or any of the others whose names are known. They had names! They did NOT die in vain!There is a wonderful website about the Fire maintained by Cornell University at [...]. There are survivor interviews there, waiting to be read and heard. Go there and learn the real stories of this Fire. Learn about the strike. Read Leon Stein's The Triangle Fire and Dave Von Drehle's Triangle: The Fire That Changed America -- both available here at amazon.com. But don't by this film expecting... history.PS-- I did work in a factory; and there was a fire. I'm here because of Fire Drills and Fire Safety Laws that came because of Triangle Fire and via Union Strikes. I'm here because of the bravery of the Triangle Strikers and men and women like them. And I *still* look for the union label when I buy a coat, dress or blouse!

I used this DVD for the first time this school year and my students were very interested...always a plus! It included background info. about the big strike female factory workers held the year before the fire and showed how concessions the workers did not gain led to the huge number of deaths in the fire. This also led to discussions of unions today, union-busting being done in certain corporations, and "right to work" (it's a misnomer) legislation in many states today. Any time events from the past can be connected to the present, it becomes more real for students. Some of it was very moving: hearing from police officers (who had beaten these very same women during the strike) and firefighters with the actors' voices breaking with emotion, describe their feelings of helplessness as they watched women fall to their deaths, long hair aflame, some of my students had tears streaming down their own faces. We talked about the horrible choice some of those women made: to die in the fire or to jump to their deaths and compared it to the people who jumped to their deaths on September 11th. This DVD gave me the opportunity to have discussions with my students that would have been difficult to start without it. It was beautifully done. When my students see that we're going to watch a History Channel, A & E, or PBS DVD, they complain. The said they very much enjoyed this one and will have a better attitude about educational DVDs from now on.

I am a huge fan of the American Experience program, and this episode doesn't disappoint. It is a tragic story, but it brought about positive change in the workplace. Full of facts and pictures, this shows the events of that day and days after in vivid detail. Every documentary lover will enjoy this program.

I tend to show seasonal films for my family -- "Invincible" during Super-Bowl season, "Secretariat" for the Kentucky Derby, etc. This, along with "Norma Rae," was what I chose to show for Labor Day. It covers one of the most horrific tragedies of the Industrial Revolution and gives meaningful insights into the lives of many of the victims of Manhattan's Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire. It's an important film, one that our children need to see. Yes, I'm sure it has some of the shortcomings mentioned by other reviewers; but for a good, overall picture of what working-class American women, mostly immigrants, endured at that time, and the widespread social and industrial impact of the event, this film cannot be beaten.

My daughter is working on her PhD in history and currently teaching at a university. She has found that nothing teaches history like seeing it. She teaches about working conditions and women and unions and found this video at the school library. She was impressed with the way this video shows the conditions and the circumstances involving all three areas of her program. I decided that this was a video that she was going to use constantly and to make sure that she didn't have to worry about if the library had it in or the quality of an overused video I would buy her her own copy for her library. Anyone who wants to see the struggles of the working woman and the role this tragedy played in the formation of unions needs to see this movie. For anyone just interested in history it is a real eye-opener and being so visual and documented it remains with the viewer.