Today in Labor History November 26th

 

Four months before the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, six young women burned to death and 19 more died when they leapt from the fourth-story windows of a blazing factory in Newark, New Jersey. The floors and stairs were wooden; the only door through which the women could flee was locked. The fire made national news and more that 100,000 people flocked to the scene the next day. A coroner’s jury a month later deemed the fire the result of human error: “They died from misadventure and accident.” – 1910