A commemoration

Fire escape twisted by the weight of workers trying to escape the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, New York City, March 25, 1911.


146 workers, mostly immigant teenagers and young women, died because doors in the sweatshop were locked to prevent theft. Read the names, at this excellent and very informative Cornell site. Despite immense public outcry, the plant's owners eventually settled, for about $75 per victim.


Why does this tragedy in particular resonate so much across a century? Perhaps because it had so many witnesses; huge crowds watched helplessly as young girls jumped from the 9th and 10th floors. It was the September 11 of its day, but it could not be blamed on evil foreigners. Perhaps because it galvanized something in people who saw it, and tens of thousands marched for safer working conditions, spurring on the strength of the ILGWU and the union movement nationwide.

Maybe because we are in a new Gilded Age and the robber barons are back as strong as they ever were. History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.

But if you're in the mood for some literary symbolism, March 25 is also (by our calendar) the date that the ultimate industrial robber-baron of fantasy literature crumpled into nothing when the golden source of his power was undone by some little guys and a volcano.

I live in a "superpower." I understand the temptation to keep the Ring. But can you see the young girls' faces in the flames?

A commemoration

Fire escape twisted by the weight of workers trying to escape the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, New York City, March 25, 1911.


146 workers, mostly immigant teenagers and young women, died because doors in the sweatshop were locked to prevent theft. Read the names, at this excellent and very informative Cornell site. Despite immense public outcry, the plant's owners eventually settled, for about $75 per victim.


Why does this tragedy in particular resonate so much across a century? Perhaps because it had so many witnesses; huge crowds watched helplessly as young girls jumped from the 9th and 10th floors. It was the September 11 of its day, but it could not be blamed on evil foreigners. Perhaps because it galvanized something in people who saw it, and tens of thousands marched for safer working conditions, spurring on the strength of the ILGWU and the union movement nationwide.

Maybe because we are in a new Gilded Age and the robber barons are back as strong as they ever were. History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.

But if you're in the mood for some literary symbolism, March 25 is also (by our calendar) the date that the ultimate industrial robber-baron of fantasy literature crumpled into nothing when the golden source of his power was undone by some little guys and a volcano.

I live in a "superpower." I understand the temptation to keep the Ring. But can you see the young girls' faces in the flames?