The Triangle Fire of 1911, Part 2

few weeks after the fire the newspapers began to lose interest. In April of that year a mass meeting was held at the Metropolitan Opera House. The audience was outraged and wanted action. They voted to send a distinguished Committee of Safety to Albany to demand change. They wanted a commission to study factory conditions and conceive new laws, and operate free from politics. The group was made up of five members from the legislature and four appointed by the governor. The governor created the Factory Investigating Commission three months after the fire. The commission had the power to subpoena witnesses and documents, elect its own members, employ experts and change its own rules. Its first year's budget was ten thousand dollars and they used it to investigate two thousand factories and propose 15 new laws covering fire safety, inspections, and employment rules for women and children; eight of the laws were enacted.

In 1912, twenty-five bills were enacted totally changing the labor industry of New York. Nearly every problem the Triangle building had was taken care of under the laws: sprinklers were required in high rise buildings, fire drills were mandatory, doors had to be unlocked and swing outward. Other laws were for the protection of women and children. To enforce these laws, a problem during the strike of 1909, the commission completely reorganized the Department of Labor. ²⁷

V

The Triangle Fire and strike gave the public some insight into where feminism was heading. The public realized that women were a huge part of the work force and companies simply could not function without them. ²⁸ The Factory Investigating Commission was a direct result of the travesty that was the Triangle fire. It completely revolutionized New York's factories, making them safer and more equipped for the reality of working conditions. This was a perfect platform for a political shift to the left. The fire set off a chain of events that reformed the workplace for many. The strike showed the power of the workingwomen, once united, and made the public take notice of their strength. ²⁹

Today's factories would not be the same without this tragedy having taken place and even though so many lives were needlessly lost, it takes a catastrophe like this for people to take notice and for change to happen. Their deaths brought greater change in the weeks that followed then the 75,000 strikers could in

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