In the video “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” there was a building called ASCH building. In that building there was about 500 employees working there 11-12 hours a day. There were women working there who didn’t speak English and they were young. On March 25, 1911, there was a fire that started and there was no way to put out the fire. The hose of the extinguisher was not working and there was no way for the workers to get out because there was only one elevator working and it can only hold 12 people. Also, the emergency was locked, and they couldn’t get out through there and many people started to jump. About 144 people died from the fire and two died in the hospital. It’s sad that these workers died because the emergency doors were locked and if it wasn’t for these emergency doors being locked, I believe these workers would’ve survived. It’s not fair that the factory owners were found not guilty because it was their fault that they kept the emergency door locked.             

            In the video “Triangle Returns” it mentions how there was a fire in one of the factories in Bangladesh on December 14, 2010. The same thing that happened in the shirtwaist factory it happened in the factory in Bangladesh. The workers tried to go down the stairs to exist the building, but the fire was too strong and then they tried to exit through the emergency door, but the doors were also locked. These workers wanted to get paid more but companies like Gap and Walmart didn’t want to pay them more. I think this is unbelievable from companies like Gap and Walmart in which a lot of people buy from and I’m pretty sure they make a lot of money. It’s not fair that these people are working in factories for little pay and they are risking their lives and only getting one day off a month.  It’s something that we need to do as a society because these people are working for little money and people who shop at these stores don’t realize what these workers are going through working in factories. I like my classmate Emely D picture because it shows women fighting to get a higher a raise. I believe they were doing the right thing because working in a factory it can be a risk to them just how the fire started and not having a way to get out the building. Also, having little pay and working many hours without a break it’s not fair to the workers. 

In one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York City, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was located near Washington Park, occupating a couple of floors of the Asch Building. Regardless of its location, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is considered a sweatshop by all standards as it consisted of long hours, low wages, and unsafe conditions for its workers. Most if not all of the workers who worked there were women, young or old it didn’t matter, and many of them didn’t speak English. I find this entire setup predatory on its own as it is clear these women were taken advantage of. The video we watched this week for the class was very insightful as well as heartbreaking. I had learned about the fire very briefly in my fashion design class in High School but had no idea how truly tragic and absolutely preventible the entire event was. On the evening of March 25th, 1911, just before the women were done with their workday, a fire broke out in a bin of cotton scraps. The first mistake was that the hose the manager tried to put the fire out with initially was rotten, and therefore wouldn’t work. The factory didn’t contain a sprinkler system, causing the fire to spread very quickly, with only one fire escape that wasn’t equipped to handle all of the women using it to try and escape, the fire escape had collapsed. The one elevator used to make rescue trips broke down after the fourth one, causing many of the workers to either jump to their death or perish in the flames. The entire ordeal lasted only eighteen minutes, and 146 workers died that evening. This whole event was heartbreaking to learn about. There really wasn’t much work for non-English speaking individuals at the time, and many who couldn’t find a better job, whether that be due to education or class, were forced to take these grueling jobs. It’s sickening to think how much money these companies made, how many long and tiresome hours their employees worked, yet they couldn’t have the decency to at least implement more safety precautions for them. Having only one fire exit is absolutely ludicrous, and the fact that there wasn’t a sprinkler system set up for a textile factory is disgusting to hear about. The owners were obviously cutting corners at the expense of these women’s safety.
As previously stated, I learned about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire a few years ago in one of my fashion courses. I really respected my teacher for bringing up the horrible repercussions that the textile industry has on our planet. We watched the documentary, “The True Cost” which detailed the horrible way our country disposes of its citizens’ textiles. This includes shipping the textiles to a third world country to have them and their citizens deal with it, ultimately suffering the consequences from it, such as inhaling toxic fumes, polluting their oceans, etc. The documentary also talks about fast fashion and the “true cost” of these subjectively less expensive clothing items that we buy. It exposes just how many of the even “more expensive” brands that we buy still fall under fast fashion as the textiles and materials that they use are cheap and nonbiodegradable. The entire made me hyper-aware of my carbon footprint in the world, I now try to buy anything that I can secondhand, mostly my clothing and books, as well as trying to limit buying fast fashion indulgences and trying not to get swooned by the ever-changing trend cycles.

The triangle shirtwaist Factory fire was one of the deadliest in American industrial history. On March 25th, 1911 Saturday evening one hundred and forty six people died due to inadequate safety precautions and lack of fire escapes in lower Manhattan, New York. This factory was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris in the Asch building on the top three floors. Most people who worked there were young immigrant women with poor  English. The workers were treated unfairly with less pay. The women worked countless hours with low wages and in inhumane working conditions. People worked there for 13 hours everyday in poor condition. Their conditions are very punitive.Workers cannot take breaks. It was closing time when the fire broke out. The factory was not secure enough. The factory did not have sprinklers. In the building of  seven floors only one of four elevators work for about 500 people who work there. So the elevators can hold only twelve people at the time. When the women were trying to go out, the door was locked by the managers because they could not get breaks, or to prevent theft during the day. So the ladies were forced to jump or stay in the fire. Some of the girls jumped 100 feet down and died.  This disaster provoked a lot of protest.

On April 5th, 1911 in 5th Avenue in Manhattan more than 350000 people protested. The  ILGWU( International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union) marched to protest against the triangle shirtwaist. On the video I saw the sign on the left” Ladieswaist and dressmakers Union Local 25 We Mourn Our Loss” on the right I read “ We Mourn Our Loss-United Hebrew Trades of New York”. These protests led to the new laws concerning the safety and well being of all workers. 

 The second video also showed us how the same thing happened in Bangladesh with the workers. On December 14th 2010 On the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in Bangladesh workers were again burned and died in fire. Like what Charles Kernaghan, the director of Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights said. This happened again, nothing has changed. The workers work  12 to 13 hours with less pay. The workers died in the fire. They were  locked. So when the fire started, they   jumped from the window like the girls did on the triangle Factory. The exit door was locked too.  In Bangladesh, workers  have only one day off in the month. 

I think things are going worse. We need laws to protect the workers. Since 1911 people still protest for better conditions for the workers and the equal rights between the both sex. Women protest to get the same rights as men in the workplace.” Virginia just became the 38th State to pass the Equal Right Amendment. The equal right amendment was proposed a century ago, but in the US , the government has never looked, or so close on this situation the previous amendment was written in 1923 by members of the National Woman’s Party, and formed in June 1916. It took 86 years for this amendment to be passed in Virginia. That shows us that there was a lot of fight to get equality between women and men. I mean the right to vote. There were many protests. about the Equal Rights Amendment. Alice Paul, was the founder of the National Woman’s Party. In 1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Burns Cree founded the congressional Union for women’s Suffrage. They used parades, petitions, protests and pickets to push the government to sign the rights to vote. Women won the right to vote in 1920.after that they turned their attention to the next steps. Neuwirth said:”Once they got the vote, they wanted to get all the other rights that they should have.” Women do not give up but still work for a better life, and condition.

 I think this week the two videos were to show us and raise our awareness about workers conditions. Even though the workplace, or the workers’ conditions have changed positively about the safety standards in the work, I think it is not enough. We have to work again to give better conditions to workers.I think  the snapshot of Heartherlee summarizes both videos about the triangle shirtwaist in 1911 and the Bangladesh factory fire. The color of the first picture tells us the picture was taken a long time ago, the triangle factory, and the second picture  color was the recent meaning of the factory of Bangladesh. In each picture we see women doing the same job, making clothes. Since 1911for today nothing has changed about women’s condition in the working world. Women suffer. They just have to do it, to work without saying anything like what Rsaquel Hernandez posted on the snapshot. 

I learned about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in middle school, I believe. I remember the fire happening in Bangladesh when I was in middle school as well, and learning that many of the women who died were my age. I remember feeling so enraged and wanting to never buy from corporations like Gap again. I told my mom this and she agreed that it was horrific. During that time my mom didn’t buy many clothes, I mostly had hand-me-downs as my mom is a single mom and at the time she was struggling to make ends meet. However, when she did buy new school clothes for me it was usually at a place like Gap. She was not unaware of the horrible things Gap endorsed, she just did not have the money to shop at a more sustainable, or ethical clothing shop because they are typically more expensive.

Now that I’m older and I buy my own clothes I try to buy from thrift stores or save to buy from more ethical stores. I just also remind myself that this is a privilege to have the time to thrift, as well as the energy to save for more sustainable clothing. I’ve read articles, and heard first-hand from people who try to shame people for buying from companies that have sweatshops overseas, without caring to realize that people simply do not have any other option because it is all they can afford.

I believe that those who have the money should make an effort to buy from more ethical stores, but the pressure should really be on big companies to change how they operate their business. It is not enough for a small drop of the population to not endorse these companies. People rely on the clothing stores, like Gap, to buy their children uniforms for school and their attire for work. Capitalism has made it difficult for people to not support these big businesses, because unfortunately we live in a cycle where even if morally we hate them, we rely on them heavily to survive.

I don’t have all of the answers but it’s important to educate ourselves in these topics as well as staying open about all of the moving parts. For myself, I know I need to learn more about fair trade laws and foreign goods. The fact that sweatshop and underage conditions are not allowed in the U.S.A, but yet most of what we wear comes from these conditions just shows how much is swept under the rug. Just now I was looking up the Dhaka fire in 2012 and found another one that happened in a factory this July, 2021. Obviously, we need more change and many more protections for workers. I also think, living in America, where our government supports our isolation from other country – we do not know a lot about what is going on in other countries which means we have a very uneducated and naive point of view of the world.

I hope that this country continues to support ethical and sustainable clothing, especially considering workers conditions as well as in terms of climate change.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a sweatshop in the Asch building in Manhattan, New York. There were around 500 employees that worked there, they had long hours, the conditions of working there were unsafe and their wages were very low. The employees were young immigrant women who did not understand or speak the English language. 

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a tragedy that occured on March 25, 1911. It was caused by a cigarette button,  perhaps, it started in a bin of cotton scraps. The working conditions were so unsafe that a sprinkler system was not installed, therefore the fire spread quickly. There were only a couple of ways out, a fire escape that collapsed, the elevator that broke down after 4 trips and unfortunately jumping through the window. The exit door was locked from the inside, another way to get out. Unfortunately the fire hose reached to the 7th floor because the fire department wasn’t advanced in technology. 144 people died in the factory and later 2 more people died in the hospital. Due to this tragedy a protest took place on April 5, 1911. The American industrial workplaces were redefined, the law called Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention was passed. The sprinklers system was demanded, fire exits must remain open at all times, the fair labor standards act was created in 1938. Minimum wage laws and time and a half for overtime. 

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a tragedy that we hope people learned from but unfortunately that is not ture. On December 14, 2010 at the Hummin factory a fire broke out. Exit doors were locked and workers jumped out to have a body to be buried by their families. 29 workers were killed, over 100 workers injured and twenty six were hospitalized. Management paid the families as compensation. These workers are getting paid 28 cents an hour, 1/10 of what wages were 100 years ago. The workers at Bangladesh protested to get 35 cents an hour but were beaten, shot with rubber bullets and a die in the water was put so they can be arrested later. 

ERA

The second part of this week’s reading is how the state of Virginia became the 38th state to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The amendment was passed originally in 1972 by congress.The Equal Rights Amendment is the rights shall not be denied to anyone due to their sex, Congress shall have power to enforce the law and the amendment shall take effect two years after meaning in 1974. The amendment was originally written in 1923 but was not passed. It was not passed because it divided women from different classes. The Equal Rights Amendment was proposed by Alice Paul, she was the founder of the National’s Woman’s party. The National’s Women’s party formed protests, petitions to fight for the right to vote.  In 1920 women had the right to vote and due to gaining the right they moved on to the next step. An Equal Rights Amendment was not passed and a deadline for ratification was extended. Once the deadline was close only 35 states passed this amendment. The states that the amendment was not passed had poor interest in protecting people of color and women. 

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was a tragic event to know that 146 women lost their lives in such a traumatizing event. It goes to show how companies really don’t care about their workers. They locked them inside the building like prisoners and did nothing but give the family members money as if that would bring back their loved ones. It’s disappointing to know that the owners of the factory were found not guilty. The way the justice system works in this country is horrifying, if you have money, you can get away with anything. However, I am sure that if it was 146 men that died in that factory the court would have found the owners guilty. It gave me some faith in humanity to learn that there was a march for the girls and because of them sweatshops in the United States were abolished and the rights for women were fought for. Women have been fighting for equal rights to men since 1700 and it is truly sad to know that we are still in this constant battle for our human rights. Its disturbing how big corporations and the government all over the world treat working-class people like nothing. Yes, sweatshops are banned in the United States, but these companies take their business to other countries and pay the workers an unlivable wage. learning about the fire that took place in a Bangladesh factory was shocking. The same thing that happened to the women of the triangle shirtwaist factory is the same thing that happened to the people in this clothing factory in Bangladesh. The doors were locked, people jumping out of windows to save their bodies so their families could identify them, the exact thing that happened at the triangle factory. Then, when the workers fight for their lives and protest to raise the wage to 35 cents they are beaten. I found it hard to watch the whole video because it is so heartbreaking and then to be reminded that this is still going on in the present day. Therefore, fast fashion is so toxic to our community, companies like Gucci, Gap, Nike, all the name brand companies are not ethical.

After reading “Virginia Just Became the 38th State to Pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Here’s What to Know About the History of the ERA” it was disappointing to know that the ERA is still not a part of the constitution. Why is it so hard for people to grasp the idea that women and men are equal? The right to vote was granted to women in 1920 and yet we still fight for the rights to everything today, just look at what’s happening in Texas with the abortion laws, it was annoying to read about Phyllis Schlafly and her view towards the ERA. People like Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony, all the women of the suffrage movement are fighting to be seen as equals to men so they can work, vote, go to school. And this is what Schlafly feels, “What I am defending is the real rights of women,” Schlafly once said. “A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.” This is something I hear a lot of women who are against feminine say. The right to be a mother and take care of one’s house is not taken away when women are granted the right to work and do all the things a man can. One birthright cannot overweight the other.  I really enjoyed Glory Kalu Wilson’s post presenting women of the labor rights movement holding a quote by Susan B Anthony saying, “No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex.”  Anthony and many women before her paved the way for us to continue to fight for our rights as women and for Schlafly to say that the ERA would harm us as women are disappointing.

This week’s article and documentaries were informative and an eye-opener to all the sacrifices and labor women had to go through to gain their freedom and have equal rights and privileges they deserve. After watching both documentaries “Triangle, shirtwaist factory fire” and “Triangle Return,” it was so shocking how a big factory-like that could have all its fire escape provision damaged at the same time and the doors locked for outside with no access for people inside the factory. From the documentaries, the triangle shirtwaist factory was the deadliest industrial disaster in New York which killed 146 people mostly young immigrant women. These women were treated like their lives were worth nothing, they worked 12 hours every day. This time-built momentum was a key moment in the growth of labor unions such as the ILGWU (International Ladies Garment Workers Union) and other progressive changes. The triangle shirtwaist factory fire served as a cautionary tale that helped to redefine America’s Industrial workplace. However, everything that the American people have won some years back is being destroyed as little has changed in the global sweatshop economy. The same fate and tragedy that occurred on March 25th, 1911, occurred on December 14th, 2010, at a factory in Bangladesh. According to “Triangle Return” about 29 workers were killed, and hundreds injured. These workers live in abject misery and were paid about 28 cents an hour mostly teenage young girls and young men. 

A classmate’s snapshots that really relate well with this issue was Heatherlee’s snapshots, their snapshots show an image of women who worked in a sweatshop factory many years ago, and the other also shows an image of women working in the sweatshop factory but in our present time because they were all putting on a mask on their faces. Looking at both images, we can see the women lined up in the same direction with their sewing machines producing goods for these factories that careless of their well-being. These women are not supposed to be subjected to work in these sweatshop factories where their hard work is not appreciated. We need international laws, minimum wage laws, etc. to protect the rights of young women who make these garments and all workers in the developing world. We have the right to have legislation that bans the import of child labor goods and sweetshop goods in the United States of America. We can do in the global economy what we did in our domestic economy and as we begin the race to the bottom in the global sweatshop economy, we can hold corporations accountable. 

The article “Virginia Just Became the 38th State to Pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Here’s What to Know About the History of the ERA” by Tara Law gives us a timeline process about the fight of feminist women to gain equal rights to vote and be added to the U.S. constitution. These women fought to make sure that the Equal Rights Amendment was passed, “but the amendment failed to gain much widespread support in the 1920’s party because it divided members of the women’s movement along class lines”. The Equal Rights Amendment was first written by Allen Paul who was also the founder of the National women’s party which was formerly the congressional Union party for women suffrage in 1913. The ERA was a step towards achieving equality for all people regardless of sex. They also used better and alternative ways to advocate for women’s rights to vote through parades, petitions, protests, and pickets and they later went on to challenge broader issues facing women in society. One of the Equal Rights Amendment says that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on the account of Sex.” The Amendment was formed to advocate for women’s right to vote in 1923 by the national women’s Party, which later advocate for Equal Rights Amendment and broader issues facing women in society such as workplace protection. The Equal Rights Amendment in the 1920s could not get enough momentum due to individual differences among the women as some were seeking workplace Protection and some felt it could affect laws that made factories safer for working women. According to Jessica Neuwirth, a women’s rights lawyer, and a founder of ERA Coalition, she said: “suffrage advocates saw their work as remedying the intentional omission of women from the US Constitution because they were basically not full citizens who should have the right to vote.” The deadline for ratification by states was extended by three years from 1978 to 1982, but it did not yield any positive result as the required number of states needed to pass the Equal Rights Amendment was not meet up and most of those states neither had women in their states legislatures and had an ugly record of protecting women’s rights and people of color. The Virginia Equal Rights Amendment was a wonderful opportunity to pass the Amendment for a better and greater American Society that respects and values the rights of American women even though it has a major challenge. The Equal Rights Amendment has made positive gains and considerable progress in our society by addressing some issues faced by women in society even though the amendment has not been passed yet. Women are now aware of their rights both at home and at the workplace and this has a profound effect on the law and American Society. Advocates believe this could strengthen the legal basis to fight violence against women both in-office and at home plus workplace pay inequality. Professor Tracy Thomas of The University of Akron School of Law believes that protecting women’s rights in the Constitution would potentially have a major cultural impact positively. 

This week, we had a collection of extremely dark and heart wrenching videos that dealt with sweatshops, worker’s rights and safety, and a tragedy that occurred in the early 1900’s in New York City’s Greenwich Village and how the same events are still repeating in areas around the world today. 

The first video we watched gave us a very brief, but informative look on the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The event occurred on March 25^th, 1911 at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory (the modern day Asch Building of Biology Studies at NYU) on Greene Street. Composed of an all women workforce, women of all ages would work 6 days a week with 13 hour shifts everyday, earning roughly $6 every per week (which is roughly $130 with inflation). With an extremely hot working environment and no safety measures in place, the place was bound to have problems. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, had the bright idea to set their own business on fire so they could obtain their insurance money.Without any mind of their workers safety, they decided to light the fuse to begin this horrible deed. When the workers first noticed the fire, they calmly proceeded to the exits only to realize that it had been locked by the owners as a way to promote productivity. The workers then proceeded to the fire escape only to find that the fire escape has not been maintained properly and that everything had rusted away. This was when the workers started to panic. Some of worker’s rushed to the elevators, however, it could only fit about 12 people in the elevator. After a few trips, the elevator broke down. With no fire sprinkler system in place, many workers started to suffocate due to the smoke or started to burn. Many started to jump out from the windows so that their parents would be able to have a proper mourning with their body intact. At the end of this event, 78 people were left injured and 146 died. This event is generally coined as the “Deadliest Industrial Accident in the United States.” Because of this incident, we have a lot of our modern day building safety codes such as emergency doors being unlocked at all times, sprinklers in every room, and doors that swing outside, etc. 

We would hope that, by today, we would be over these challenges already. However, sadly, these events are still occurring today. In the second video we watched, it talked about how a clothes factory in Bangledesh had went through the same problem, almost frame by frame. This factory, utilized by retailers such as GAP, Walmart, etc. to produce their goods, also had no safety measures in place. The building did now have any of the safety codes that we have here in the States. Their emergency exits were locked to promote productivity, there was no sprinklers installed in the building, and the fire escape was broken. Many perished in this event. 

These events are also occurring in other industries such as the farming industry in America. American farmers have been subject to low pay, dangerous working environments with harmful pesticides everywhere,  and long hours every week. These situations led Cesar S. Chavez and Dolores Huertas to create the United Farm Workers of America, and worker union for farmers in the US. This organization is still relevant today and is still fighting to end many of the inequalities and dangers farmers in the US have to face everyday. These struggles are still relevant today so we need to do our part in helping out and fighting the good fight. Buy products that support fair trade  and responsible business practices!!

Feminists have been very much aggressive over the past few decades to get equality which haven’t been granted in a long time. It’s important to understand that we can’t live in a world where others would be treated fairly because of their sex and others would be deprived of certain privileges because they are opposite. In the 1920s, we saw in the states women rise to fight for equality and what they believed in, to that extent a party was even formed led by Mrs Paul in the name “National Women’s Party” which led the fight to an extent where we saw women after being long deprived of voting had that gap bridged. In view of that, they were then allowed to participate and hold political positions which was a massive move to the start of equality for women. Over the years, several amendments were attempted and others were to be rectified to aid in the bridging of the gap of human rights and privileges to facilitate and accommodate every body regardless their sexes. An Equal Right Amendment that started a long time ago after the National Women’s Party achieved their aim of getting the voting rights handed to women, they geared towards achieving an equal rights for everyone regardless your gender with emphasis on women rights, in 1972 they came close to its implementation after a long wait for ratification. It however failed due to some unforeseen tendency and was given a speculated time frame of 10 years this 1982 for its review and consideration, it’s rather unfortunate that we are yet to see an attention being given to it which would help level the grounds once and for all.

The whole process of the Equal Right Amendment started by Alice Paul who happens to be the founder of the National Women’s Party, this was between 1885-1977 where she believed not only are women supposed to have the right to vote but actual have the chance to experience equal rights and privileges as every other person especially males. After her demise, it became unpopular as most people didn’t give it the force needed until in the 1950s where we had Martha Griffins coming in to push it further. She presented it to the House of Commons in 1972 the need to look through the amendment and pass it as a bill, it’s important that everyone is given an equal opportunity because no one deserves to be treated differently based on their sexes. It is very much needed that more force is driven behind its implementation as since after the ratification in 1972 although it was due in 1982 nothing was done about it, fast forward 2019 we had a motion raised to make it a reality but unfortunately wasn’t given that much attention. In March 2017, after the thought that it was quite impossible to get the bill of the Equal Right Amendment brought to light, a set of individuals moved a motion which eventually led to its revelation in 2019 and has since then become a topic of discussion gaining wide importance and making it very vital for the survival of women at large.