Triangle Shirtwaist Fire — Transcript

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1. 0:01okay so here we are
2. 0:03so today i'm going to try to do a little
3. 0:06mini
4. 0:07lecture on progressivism and the
5. 0:09triangle shirtwaist fire
6. 0:11that happened in new york city in march
7. 0:13uh of 1911.
8. 0:16so progressivism i think progressivism
9. 0:20is this massive reform movement that
10. 0:22takes place
11. 0:23really in the gilded age up until
12. 0:26and through maybe world war one it
13. 0:28especially wants to use government in
14. 0:30many ways to basically make society more
15. 0:32efficient
16. 0:33and better to reform a lot of things in
17. 0:36society and you know you got to remember
18. 0:37this
19. 0:38in the gilded age this is the time
20. 0:40period after the civil war really the
21. 0:411870s through the early 1900s
22. 0:43things were really bad for a lot of
23. 0:45people workers had it pretty bad
24. 0:47in the 18 i think 80 90ish era
25. 0:50um andrew carnegie made about 20 million
26. 0:54dollars a year
27. 0:55while the average worker made about 500
28. 0:57a year so there's a real income
29. 0:59disparity
30. 1:00a lot of people worked in really bad
31. 1:01places in terms of
32. 1:03conditions there was child labor that
33. 1:05was used
34. 1:06not only to help businesses but to help
35. 1:08families get by it was a really
36. 1:10difficult time for a lot of people and
37. 1:12progressivism is the idea to reform this
38. 1:14to make this better basically using the
39. 1:17government as a place that would come in
40. 1:19and make a more just more efficient
41. 1:20society
42. 1:22and oftentimes something really bad
43. 1:25would spur a government into action and
44. 1:27that is what happened in 1911
45. 1:28in new york city and the state of new
46. 1:31york with a triangle shirtwaist fire so
47. 1:33new york
48. 1:34city had the garment district where they
49. 1:35would make these different clothes even
50. 1:37back in the early 1900s
51. 1:38there is an emphasis on fashion and
52. 1:41couture as you can tell
53. 1:43i care deeply about couture not really i
54. 1:46don't know what couture means i just
55. 1:47heard the word
56. 1:48and i haven't changed my shirt in like
57. 1:50seven days i have worn this shirt
58. 1:53to school seven days in a row and i
59. 1:55don't think anybody even knows
60. 1:57i think people were still surprised that
61. 1:59i work here
62. 2:00seven days in a row have i worn this
63. 2:03shirt
64. 2:04and so basically uh
65. 2:08they make this thing called shirt waist
66. 2:10a shirt waist is just a woman's
67. 2:12shirt it's a blouse it's a woman's shirt
68. 2:14and that's what the triangle shirt was
69. 2:16factory made it is on the eighth
70. 2:18ninth and tenth floors of a shop that is
71. 2:21right off of broadway which is the main
72. 2:24street
73. 2:24going through new york city and right
74. 2:26next to washington square park in fact
75. 2:29oftentimes if you watch friends which
76. 2:31i'm watching friends right now i love to
77. 2:32show friends
78. 2:33with my wife we were on the sixth season
79. 2:36of
80. 2:36friends you know these random things i'm
81. 2:39telling you we're going to be up on the
82. 2:40on the quiz
83. 2:42and so a lot of times friends will show
84. 2:44these arches
85. 2:45at the washington square park it's
86. 2:46beautiful and right between broadway in
87. 2:48this park
88. 2:49is a triangle stairways factory it's in
89. 2:50a very populated part of new york city
90. 2:53right now the building where this
91. 2:55happened is an nyu biology building
92. 2:58uh i actually walked by this actually
93. 3:00hunted this down not very long ago i
94. 3:02walked i
95. 3:02went from battery park walked all the
96. 3:04way up broadway and realized where i was
97. 3:05and then cut over and i saw the building
98. 3:07right there it's 10 stories high and
99. 3:09literally right a block away
100. 3:11is washington square park it is in a
101. 3:12very busy part of town
102. 3:14especially in 1911. and they make these
103. 3:17blasters on the eighth ninth and tenth
104. 3:18floor the eighth
105. 3:19ninth floors that's where most of the
106. 3:20work is done and on the tenth floor this
107. 3:23is where the bosses are who basically
108. 3:24did the
109. 3:25contracts and all the work the kind of
110. 3:27the bosses do
111. 3:29on this day it is march 11th uh i'm
112. 3:32sorry it's in march of 1911 and it is a
113. 3:34wonderful day and many of the girls are
114. 3:36ready to
115. 3:37get off work many of the girls are
116. 3:39jewish immigrants
117. 3:40from russia or from southern italy
118. 3:43and many of these girls are ready to get
119. 3:45off work and be with maybe their
120. 3:47husbands or their families or their
121. 3:48boyfriends it is a beautiful day in new
122. 3:49york city on the saturday
123. 3:52on the eighth and ninth floor where
124. 3:54these women work
125. 3:56they basically are sewing these
126. 3:57different shirts together on the eighth
127. 3:59floor are where there are some men
128. 4:01working who are known
129. 4:02their their job is to cut the fabric so
130. 4:04literally they would cut this fabric and
131. 4:06they had a big workbench and then these
132. 4:09big bins and they would take the extra
133. 4:10fabric that they didn't that they
134. 4:12did they didn't use and they would put
135. 4:14it in these bins and they had younger
136. 4:16girls who would be
137. 4:16runners who would literally run the
138. 4:19material to these girls who were sewing
139. 4:22all of these things together every day
140. 4:25when the girls left
141. 4:26on the eighth and ninth floor the door
142. 4:28was locked on their way out so when the
143. 4:30door was locked they actually had
144. 4:31someone come and open the door and go
145. 4:32through their
146. 4:33go through their belongings because they
147. 4:35thought they were stealing they were
148. 4:36afraid the girls were stealing from the
149. 4:37factory and going home and working on
150. 4:39their own
151. 4:41long long time ago back in the day
152. 4:44i used to lead helpfully trips
153. 4:48with texas christian academy where i
154. 4:49used to teach for a long time i taught
155. 4:51there for a long time and we would take
156. 4:53senior trips in new york city and one
157. 4:55thing we would always tell
158. 4:57our students when we would take these
159. 4:58trips to new york city
160. 5:00don't go down into chinatown and buy
161. 5:03purses
162. 5:04don't do this please don't do this so
163. 5:06because a lot of times you had kids and
164. 5:07parents there
165. 5:08after our meeting when we kind of
166. 5:10established the ground rules the first
167. 5:11thing that people would do is
168. 5:12run down to chinatown to buy purses
169. 5:15sometimes
170. 5:16they wanted to get there so badly that
171. 5:18they would skip the subway
172. 5:19literally they're like we gotta get down
173. 5:21there running through the streets of new
174. 5:23york
175. 5:24purses so they would get down to
176. 5:27chinatown
177. 5:28this is what they told me happened in
178. 5:29chinatown by the way this does relate to
179. 5:31what i'm talking about i'm not just
180. 5:32telling like random stories
181. 5:34um they would get down and this is what
182. 5:36happened so
183. 5:38uh people will be going around kind of
184. 5:40quietly talking about purses
185. 5:42and these are nice purses brand name
186. 5:44purses
187. 5:45by michael kurz and
188. 5:49gucci and prada whatever the purses are
189. 5:52uh and so
190. 5:52a group of went down there and they were
191. 5:55evidently taken up into a room
192. 5:57in one of these buildings which is our
193. 5:59greatest fear of sponsors
194. 6:01and we're showed these perches they
195. 6:03opened maybe open to
196. 6:04up a closet door or brought back uh
197. 6:08some kind of uh sheep that showed these
198. 6:12purses
199. 6:13and there they were these purses
200. 6:16michael curse prada uh and probably the
201. 6:20purses were knockoffs most likely they
202. 6:22were just they were fake purses
203. 6:24but i've been told by more than one
204. 6:25person that some of the purses were not
205. 6:27fake that some of the purses had
206. 6:29actually been stolen from the actual
207. 6:31factories
208. 6:32and smuggled out to these places
209. 6:36and that is what they were afraid of
210. 6:39happening at the triangle shirtwaist
211. 6:40factory so they locked the doors they
212. 6:42were so afraid of the girls smuggling
213. 6:44goods out of the factory and going home
214. 6:46and working at night and making their
215. 6:48own clothes and selling it they didn't
216. 6:49want this to happen so they locked the
217. 6:50doors in the eighth and ninth floor
218. 6:52standard it was it was standard this is
219. 6:55a pretty large factory
220. 6:58by the way this factory and other
221. 6:59factories had fires
222. 7:01late in the season and they would claim
223. 7:04these for insurance and so fires were
224. 7:06not
225. 7:06that out of the ordinary but here we are
226. 7:08on this day beautiful day in march
227. 7:11and a fire breaks out on the eighth
228. 7:13floor
229. 7:14maybe we don't know for sure why but
230. 7:16maybe because a man was smoking
231. 7:18not supposed to be smoking and flipped
232. 7:20the cigarette into the bin with that
233. 7:22all this old cloth and paper and the bin
234. 7:25catches fire they immediately go for the
235. 7:28hose from the side to put the fire out
236. 7:30but no water comes out
237. 7:32there are no sprinklers uh i'm looking
238. 7:34up you can't see it but there's a
239. 7:35sprinkler right above me
240. 7:37uh and very quickly the fire is
241. 7:40out of control most of the people on the
242. 7:43eighth floor
243. 7:44are able to get out of the building
244. 7:46however
245. 7:47the woman on the eighth floor calls the
246. 7:49tenth floor it's a switchboard system
247. 7:51she can't directly call the ninth floor
248. 7:53she calls the tenth floor and tells them
249. 7:55about the fire the people on the tent
250. 7:57for them themselves
251. 7:58freak out and forget to alert the ninth
252. 8:00floor and they lose about a minute and
253. 8:0230 seconds which is a tremendous amount
254. 8:04of time
255. 8:05on the 10th floor they realize that they
256. 8:07can't get down
257. 8:08right across from them and i actually
258. 8:10went to see this not very long ago i was
259. 8:12in new york city like i said
260. 8:14and this building is not that far from a
261. 8:16building side by side to it and you
262. 8:17could
263. 8:18they put a ladder they put i think
264. 8:19there's a ladder right there
265. 8:21and on the 10th floor everyone in the
266. 8:2310th floor was able to make their way
267. 8:24across that space and was saved there
268. 8:26was a law
269. 8:27school the nyu law school was next door
270. 8:30and they were saved
271. 8:31however the people on the ninth floor
272. 8:34were in big trouble
273. 8:35because the door was locked the fire
274. 8:38came up
275. 8:38they lost those 90 seconds and the door
276. 8:40was locked and they couldn't get out the
277. 8:42door
278. 8:42this is horrible also this is it starts
279. 8:45at 4 45 5 o'clock on a saturday in march
280. 8:48and the day is nice and all these people
281. 8:52come out to watch this like the the fire
282. 8:56trucks pulled by horses go to this fire
283. 9:00but they can only get up to the sixth
284. 9:02floor and here they are trapped in the
285. 9:04ninth floor and by the way
286. 9:06one of the things that fires do it
287. 9:08brings out rubber neckers it brings out
288. 9:09people to watch the fires i have a
289. 9:11memory of this i grew up again in small
290. 9:13town ralls texas i know i've mentioned
291. 9:14this before
292. 9:15population 2242 salute and at one point
293. 9:20in rawls texas i have a memory
294. 9:23of the it's a local volunteer fire
295. 9:25department my dad was a part of it
296. 9:27my dad actually also worked as an emt
297. 9:30there
298. 9:31in rales and i remember i believe at one
299. 9:34point
300. 9:34they the city of rawls had to send out
301. 9:36in the water bill a request for people
302. 9:39in rawls to stop following the fire
303. 9:42trucks when there was a fire
304. 9:43because let me just tell you there's not
305. 9:45a lot going on in ross texas and so when
306. 9:46they would hear the fire
307. 9:48siren go off all these people would like
308. 9:51line up and follow the fire trucks out
309. 9:54to the fire
310. 9:55and sit on the side of the road and just
311. 9:57kind of watch him fight the fire i mean
312. 9:59like
313. 9:59this is this is my hometown rawls texas
314. 10:02salute
315. 10:05uh so they had to ask people to stop
316. 10:07doing that at one point but
317. 10:08think of this and my gosh i'm kind of
318. 10:11making fun of this but i see something
319. 10:15i'm slowing down to like i'm just as bad
320. 10:19so uh uh and so
321. 10:23all these people are coming to see this
322. 10:26uh there's a woman named francis perkins
323. 10:28and francis perkins is the progressive
324. 10:30woman she's actually gone to college
325. 10:32which she's actually been taken by one
326. 10:33of her professors
327. 10:34to a meal to it to to a to a mill to see
328. 10:38how the workers work there so she wants
329. 10:41to make the lives of workers better
330. 10:43and she francis perkins actually sees
331. 10:45here's all the things going on outside
332. 10:47and leaves where they're having their
333. 10:49they're having a snack
334. 10:51leaves and goes to this triangle
335. 10:54shirtwaist factory just as
336. 10:56on this afternoon late afternoon in 1911
337. 10:59people start to jump
338. 11:01out of the windows from the ninth floor
339. 11:03this is
340. 11:04so horrifying there's a massive crowd
341. 11:08and people are
342. 11:09jumping out the windows to their deaths
343. 11:11below one girl survives for about five
344. 11:13hours before she dies from her injuries
345. 11:1662 people jumped from my understanding
346. 11:20the reason they jumped is because they
347. 11:21knew that they would be incinerated in
348. 11:23the fire
349. 11:24and they did not want this is they died
350. 11:27so this is the
351. 11:28this is what people think they did not
352. 11:29want people to not be able to identify
353. 11:32them for their families
354. 11:33um and so they jumped it is incredibly
355. 11:36tragic
356. 11:37to watch this happen these these girls
357. 11:39and some men from the ninth floor jump
358. 11:40to their death
359. 11:42at the end of the day 146 people died in
360. 11:44the triangle shirtless factory it was
361. 11:46massive
362. 11:46news in the lower east side of new york
363. 11:48city for weeks and weeks
364. 11:52at the end of the day uh
365. 11:55at the end of the day there's a trial
366. 11:57over who is to blame for this
367. 11:59and the company is forced to pay about
368. 12:0470 to 80 per person and is capped at
369. 12:07that so
370. 12:08that is how much the lives of those
371. 12:10individuals were valued it's a
372. 12:11heartbreaking story however
373. 12:14the state of new york is horrified and
374. 12:17politicians there
375. 12:18get together and begin to push through
376. 12:21legislation that will change things
377. 12:23and francis perkins who had seen this
378. 12:26happen
379. 12:26actually works as an administrator for
380. 12:28this commission and
381. 12:29they go visit factories they visited a a
382. 12:33factory
383. 12:34that didn't have enough bathrooms for
384. 12:36the number of people that worked there
385. 12:36they visited a factory
386. 12:38they had stairs going up to a second
387. 12:40floor that didn't have a railing which
388. 12:42is
389. 12:42really scary and dangerous they opened
390. 12:44they visited a factory where there was
391. 12:46child labor where the kids were so tired
392. 12:47they would fall asleep at night they
393. 12:49visited the factory
394. 12:50where they were uh it was a chocolate
395. 12:52factory where
396. 12:53they had these these dangerous open
397. 12:55fires like heating up
398. 12:57uh things and they saw how this was and
399. 13:00this is what is so important
400. 13:03this commission comes back and they
401. 13:06recommend
402. 13:08at 25 major laws
403. 13:11that remake new york state's
404. 13:15labor laws for the time being
405. 13:19progressive laws just like you got to
406. 13:21have a fire drills you got to have the
407. 13:22sprinklers in these factories
408. 13:24remakes labor laws in new york city
409. 13:27after this terrible terrible event and
410. 13:29in some ways this is what progressivism
411. 13:31does
412. 13:32progressivism goes in and tries to to
413. 13:35make
414. 13:35changes and that's what this fire
415. 13:37brought about this horrific fire
416. 13:38caused legislation in new york city to
417. 13:42change things now let me just say this
418. 13:43it is only the state of new york city is
419. 13:45only the state of new york
420. 13:47progressivism uh
421. 13:51in referring to present progressivism
422. 13:52oftentimes states
423. 13:54were considered lab laboratories
424. 13:57democracy states
425. 13:59so states are going to do much more
426. 14:01progressive things that the federal
427. 14:02government
428. 14:03can't easily do because states are often
429. 14:06more able to adapt to
430. 14:10and respond to the needs of their
431. 14:12citizens and states have
432. 14:13different personalities i think i've
433. 14:16lived in texas my whole life
434. 14:18texas i don't even know how you describe
435. 14:21texas because i
436. 14:22have always lived here so it's it's hard
437. 14:24for me not to be objective but i'm just
438. 14:25going to say this about texas
439. 14:26we're awesome i'm just kidding i don't
440. 14:29even know how to explain texas besides
441. 14:31we tend to be more
442. 14:31more independent um
443. 14:35less desirous of government oversight as
444. 14:38a state as a whole
445. 14:39just some different characteristics our
446. 14:42state
447. 14:42looks really different than the state of
448. 14:44say oregon
449. 14:45or washington state or new york and you
450. 14:48know what
451. 14:49whatever oregon wants to do or whatever
452. 14:51washington wants to do
453. 14:53god bless them like i i mean i'm in
454. 14:55texas right i mean it's a state law
455. 14:57and so those people put those
456. 14:59representatives in place and they voted
457. 15:00for it i think it's great
458. 15:02so states are laboratories of democracy
459. 15:05now here's what is harder for the
460. 15:07federal government and maybe this is why
461. 15:08we see
462. 15:09such political fighting over the past
463. 15:11even decades
464. 15:14for the federal government it is much
465. 15:16more difficult to cover the needs of 350
466. 15:19360 million people
467. 15:22in the united states when you have such
468. 15:24differing
469. 15:26groups of people that think in different
470. 15:28ways it's harder for a solution
471. 15:31to be one size fits all when we're such
472. 15:34a
473. 15:34patchwork of differences and this is why
474. 15:37you have in some ways such a fight
475. 15:39over passages of massive bills
476. 15:42through congress because it's not as
477. 15:46effective
478. 15:47and different states have
479. 15:48representatives and
480. 15:50senators who fight to defend the way of
481. 15:53thinking of that state i don't know if
482. 15:55i'm explaining it very well
483. 15:56but again states much more effective
484. 15:59laboratories of democracy let me say
485. 16:01this the last thing i want to say on
486. 16:03this
487. 16:04is a reference to francis perkins
488. 16:06francis perkins is
489. 16:07really important she will after she's
490. 16:11part of this group that goes in
491. 16:12and studies these factories and makes
492. 16:14these recommendations
493. 16:15she eventually is going to work with fdr
494. 16:17when he is governor of new york
495. 16:19in 1928 to 1932. and fdr
496. 16:22fdi will bring this woman francis
497. 16:24perkins with him
498. 16:26into his new cabinet and appoint her
499. 16:27secretary of labor and she will be the
500. 16:29first
501. 16:30female cabinet member in american
502. 16:33history this woman who literally rose up
503. 16:35through the ranks as a progressive who
504. 16:37eventually oversees
505. 16:39overseas uh the labor department
506. 16:42and will be incredibly important
507. 16:45in helping to write what will become the
508. 16:47social security act she is actually one
509. 16:49of the individuals who is
510. 16:50who is literally pounding out that
511. 16:53legislation working on that legislation
512. 16:54that's francis perkins she becomes
513. 16:56an incredibly important person this
514. 16:58individual who witnessed this terrible
515. 17:00event
516. 17:00the triangle shirtwaist factory and will
517. 17:02become a cabinet official in washington
518. 17:04dc
519. 17:06to try to use government to make the
520. 17:07lives of
521. 17:09its people better thank you very much i
522. 17:12hope everyone is doing well thank you