Image courtesy of The Kheel Center, 1911.
triumph of the people
Though the news reports were tragic, they showed the American people how dangerous factories were. Society saw for the first time what could and would happen if conditions persisted.
Clip from personal Skype interview with Dr. Jeanne Stellman, Professor Emerita and Special Lecturer, Department of Health Policy & Management, School of Public Health, Columbia University.
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Some newspapers reporting on the fire. (Click to enlarge)
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The funeral took place several days after the tragedy... All New York came to the funeral. - Mary Domsky-Abrams, a survivor, in an interview with Leon Stein. Courtesy of Ludmila wordpress. |
The American public felt they needed to mourn the victims. Garment unions organized an official day of mourning including a funeral procession for the public. 120,000 people came to the procession, in the rain.
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The Women's Trade Union set up relief work for the victim's families, and ended up raising $30,000 ($793,367.37 in today's dollar).
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So far as I am aware, this was the first time that a trade union in the United States not only collected money for relief but also organized its own relief work and directly administered the funds collected. For this reason, the work accomplished has a special value, since it demonstrates what a union of workers can do along these lines when it approaches the task confidently and energetically. - William Mailly in the American Federationist. Courtesy of Internet Archive. |
There was a stricken conscience of public guilt and we all felt that we had been wrong, that something was wrong with that building which we had accepted or the tragedy never would have happened. Moved by this sense of stricken guilt, we banded ourselves together to find a way by law to prevent this kind of disaster.
- Frances Perkins, a witness and future Secretary of Labor, on the reaction of the public. Courtesy of "Flesh and Blood so Cheap" by Albert Marrin.