We are given some of the names and taken into homes of victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. 146 workers perished in the fire that swept the New York sweatshop on March 25, 1911. Mostly young women and girls, the largely Jewish and Italian immigrants working there were burned to death or died from smoke inhalation attempting to flee the building, only to find the exits locked by management seeking to prevent unauthorized breaks. The outrage gave great impetus to organizing by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and other unions.

‘Mournful Scenes Follow Holocaust’ from the New York Call. Vol. 4 No. 87. March 28, 1911.

East Side Plunged Into Gloom by Ghastly Murders of Kin.

Horror beyond description was enacted at the morgue when persons came to view their dead. A terrible scene was it when Clara and Max Lemlich were looking for their cousin Harry, who was employed as a buttonhole maker in the Triangle shop. They went from coffin to coffin to look for the body. When they reached the last one and Harry was not found Miss Lemlich broke into hysterical laughter.

Miss Lemlich told a Call reporter of her experience in the Triangle shop.

“About two and a half years ago I went to work for the Triangle Waist Company. At that time there was no talk of organizing the shop. The spy system the firm employed was simply horrible. They could trace every movement of a girl. For talking in the shop the girls would immediately be fired. Although the shop was big and supposed to have enough light there was no light whatsoever in there.

The machines were in long rows kept close together. A girl could not pass between the machines. The girls were sitting back to back, and if one would move their chair others could not pass.

“At the conclusion of the day’s work girls were searched, like thieves. When a fire engine passed the block and the girls got nervous and excited, they were not allowed to move from their places and go over to the window to see if the fire was in the building. Finding the conditions so bad I left my job on the fourth day, although I badly needed the money. “After I left the job, I had to run for nearly three weeks before I collected the money.”

Morris Simkin, 276 Madison street, where one of the victims, Becky Kessler, lived, said last night that Miss Kessler always complained about the bad conditions prevailing in the shop. He said the girl told him that girls were discharged every day and replaced by new ones in order to prevent an organization of the workers. Miss Kessler was an active worker in the strike against the Triangle Waist Company and held out until the last moment when a compromise settlement was brought about with that firm. She was to have married in two months. Shulem Goldsteim, a Paterson silk, weaver, was looking for his sister Yetta, who perished in the fire. It is believed that Yetta was burned beyond identification.

Another heartbreaking scene was when Abraham Greenberg, 275 Watkins street, Brooklyn, recognized his sister Dina by the ring she wore. Her face was terribly burned. Abraham was searching for his sister from late Saturday night until noon yesterday. and finally identified her corpse by a ring.

The depth of horror was reached in the homes of the victims. At 78 Forsyth street, on Sunday afternoon the body of Fannie Lansner was brought in. Fannie Lansner was 21 years old. She had been in New York seven years. She made many friends. All her friends, young men and women, came to bid her farewell. The people in the tenement dropped in, one by one, and when they left it was with swollen-eyes.

Miss Lanser’s death brings grief not only to her friends, but to a brother of hers, who is to arrive in New York from Russia in a few days. In the past week the girl has been extremely happy anticipating this arrival of her brother. She had prepared new and pretty clothes for his reception. But it will be somebody else who will now meet her brother when he arrives.

Jennie Rosenberg is 21. Her body was taken from the morgue straight to the cemetery. At the house of a friend, Morris Gassman, of 243 Broome street, where she roomed, it was learned that she has a father in New York working in a basement eking out an existence for himself. Her death, it was predicted, would kill him.

Even more pitiful is the case of Sarah Weintraub. Sarah Weintraub lived in Chernowitz, Austria, until three months ago. Then she came to a sister of hers, Mrs. Jacob Kurtzman, of 186 Ludlow street. She had been working at the Triangle shop for three weeks. Her sister, Mrs. Kurtzman. yesterday walked up and down her flat. She repeated through her tears: “Why didn’t she stay in Chernowitz? Oh. America! Oh, the golden land! This is what we get!” Throughout the day thousands upon thousands of frightened girls clustered about Clinton Hall, asking each other in whispers whether more bodies were found, wiping tears away and wringing their hands.

Not only the East Side, where many of the fire victims lived, but all New York is saturated with fear of fire. The panicky mood of New York was brought out strikingly when a Bronx elevated train took fire near 90th street. In an instant the street was packed with people. In the trains, despite the assuring words from the guards, many of the women were ready to jump from the train and risk coming in contact with the third rail.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1911/110328-newyorkcall-v04n087.pdf