The Triangle Waist Company was one of New York's largest shirtwaist manufacturers, producing the popular women's blouses of the era. The factory occupied floors 8, 9, and 10 of the Asch Building at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place. Workers, predominantly Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls (some as young as 14), worked 52 hours a week for $6-$12.

Conditions were typical for garment factories of the era. Sewing machines were packed closely together. Fabric scraps covered the floors. The only exit was a narrow staircase (the second staircase was blocked). Fire escapes were inadequate. And the stairwell doors were locked from the outside to prevent workers from taking breaks or stealing materials.

The fire began around 4:40 PM, likely from a discarded cigarette or match in a bin of fabric scraps. It spread instantly through the piles of tissue paper and cotton on the cutting floor. Workers on the eighth floor tried to fight the fire with buckets of water but failed. They tried to flee but found the doors locked.

Some escaped down the stairs or via the freight elevator. Others climbed to the roof and were rescued by students from New York University across the street. But many were trapped. The fire escape collapsed under the weight of fleeing workers. The fire department's ladders reached only to the sixth floor. The building's fire hose was rotted and useless.

Thousands of bystanders watched in horror as workers appeared at the windows of the burning building. One by one, they jumped. Some jumped alone. Some held hands. Some were on fire when they fell. The crowds below screamed. Firefighters tried to catch the falling bodies with life nets, but the force of the falls tore the nets apart.

In 18 minutes, 146 people died. Fifty-three died jumping or falling. The youngest victim was 14 years old. The oldest was 43. Most were between 16 and 23. The locked doors, which the owners insisted were for security, had sealed their fate.

Triangle Waist Company owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris were charged with manslaughter. Their lawyers argued successfully that the prosecution could not prove the owners knew the doors were locked at the time of the fire. Both were acquitted.

The verdict outraged the public, but it also revealed the absence of laws that could hold employers accountable for workplace deaths. There were no fire safety requirements. No sprinkler mandates. No fire drill requirements. The owners had violated no laws because the laws didn't exist. Creating those laws became the mission of survivors and reformers.

The Triangle Fire transformed American workplace safety. New York established the Factory Investigating Commission, which led to 36 new laws regulating fire safety, factory conditions, and child labor. Frances Perkins, who had witnessed the fire from the street, became FDR's Secretary of Labor and architect of the New Deal's worker protections.

The fire also energized the labor movement. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which had organized a strike against Triangle two years earlier (broken by the owners), grew into a powerful force for worker rights. The locked doors that killed 146 workers opened a door to reform that has never fully closed.