Labor Events – The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, “A Half-Hour of Horror”

“On the eighth floor, flames suddenly leaped from a wastebasket under a table in the cutters’ area.”

“The fire spread quickly — so quickly that in half an hour it was over, having consumed all it could”

“In its wake, the smoldering floors and wet streets were strewn with 146 bodies, all but 23 of them young women.”

“soon the elevators stopped, one so weighed down by the crush of 19 bodies that it could no longer rise.”

“As hundreds watched… workers hung out of windows and climbed onto ledges, hoping to be rescued by fire trucks that had responded within minutes of the first alarm. But when the ladders stretched only to the sixth floor, 30 feet below, and flames began to singe their hair and consume their skirts, many jumped, often in twos and threes — 54 of them altogether”

“Witnesses reported seeing a man… in a gallant effort to spare his co-workers from the licking flames, held out three women at arm’s length and dropped them, one by one, to their deaths. Then he kissed a fourth, released her to her death — and plunged to the sidewalk himself.”

“As the sun set, policemen and firemen recovered the charred corpses, lowering some by block and tackle to the sidewalk to join the broken bodies of the co-workers who had jumped. A parade of vehicles transported the bodies to the Charities Pier on 26th Street, and there they were lined up in simple wooden coffins for relatives to identify.”

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