Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire......

The company employed approximately 500 workers, mostly young Italian and Eastern European immigrantwomen, some of whom were as young as twelve or thirteen, who worked fourteen-hour shifts during a 60-hour to 72-hour workweek, sewing clothes for a wage of $1.50 per week.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company had already become well-known outside the garment industry by 1911: the massive strike by women's shirtwaist makers in 1909, known as the Uprising of 20,000, began with a spontaneous walkout at the Triangle Company.

While the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union negotiated a collective bargaining agreement covering most of those workers after a four-month strike, Triangle Shirtwaist refused to sign the agreement.

The conditions of the factory were typical of the time. Flammabletextiles were stored throughout the factory, scraps of fabric littered the floors, patterns and designs on sheets of tissue paper hung above the tables, smoking was common, illumination was provided by open gas lighting, and there were no fire extinguishers.

In the afternoon of March 25, 1911, a fire began on the eighth floor. Either a lighted match or a cigarette started the fire. To this day, no one knows whether it was accidental or intentional. The workers on the tenth and eighth floors were alerted and most on those two floors were able to evacuate. However the warning about the fire did not reach the ninth floor in time.

The ninth floor had only two doors leading out. One stairwell was already filling with smoke and flames by the time the seamstresses realized the building was ablaze. The other door had been locked, ostensibly to prevent workers from stealing materials or taking breaks and to keep out union organizers.

The single exterior fire escape, a flimsy, poorly-anchored iron structure, soon twisted and collapsed under the weight of people trying to escape. The elevator also stopped working, cutting off that means of escape, partly because the panicked workers tried to save themselves by jumping down the shaft to land on the roof of the elevator.

Realizing there was no other way to avoid the flames, some of the women broke windows and jumped to the ground nine floors below. Others pried open the elevator doors and tumbled down the elevator shaft. Few survived these falls; a single survivor was found close to drowning in water collecting in the elevator shaft.^{[citation needed]} The fallen bodies and falling victims made it difficult for the fire department to reach the building.

The remainder waited until smoke and fire overcame them. The fire department arrived quickly but was unable to stop the flames, as there were no ladders available that could reach beyond the sixth floor. The death toll was 146