Image courtesy of Macauly, 1908.
owners of the triangle factory, The shirtwaist kings
Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, profited from their factory's sweatshop practices — many immigrant women and girls worked brutally long hours for very little pay — but in order to prevent workers from making off with their products, the doors of the New York City factory were locked from the outside. - Time Magazine, 2010. Courtesy of Time. |
Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were two talented salesmen and tailors who immigrated from Russia. When they arrived in America, they excelled in the shirtwaist business and soon opened the Triangle Factory. They were so successful in their unethical business endeavors that they were dubbed the 'Shirtwaist Kings'.
Harris and Blanck taking a photo with their immigrant workers. Courtesy of Macaulay.
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The booming shirtwaist industry allowed Harris and Blanck to make their fortune.
Alhough this comic was drawn in 1914, it still represents how most people felt about factory owners the time of the fire, 1914. Courtesy of Imagine Face.
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American factory owners like Harris and Blanck were generally viewed as evil people because they exploited their workers.
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The girls employed by the Triangle Waist Company Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were of the class of non-unionists which time and again we have warned the country are being brought to America to take the places of wage-workers either born here or established here for a sufficient period to know their rights as employees and to be aware of the weekly wage requisite to maintain themselves at something like American standards.
- Samuel Gompers, American Federationist, 1911. Courtesy of Cornell University.