Tragedy at Triangle
Normally I'm not much for books set in NYC - they tend to be written by people from NYC, and thus often infused with the subtext of "...and that's why New York City is the most awesome thing ever in the history of the whole entire universe" that I find exceedingly insufferable. I mean, I love my city, but I don't think it's the acme of modern civilization to the exclusion of everything else, you know?
While dealing with a historical subject probably helps matters, David von Drehle's Triangle: The Fire that Changed America manages to avoid this trap and tell the story of one of the greatest workplace tragedies in American history with clear-eyed insight. On March 25, 1911, 146 people (mostly young women) perished in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Fueled by heaps of fabric scraps, the fire quickly spread from a single scrap bin to engulf three floors of the factory. Some lucky workers were able to escape via one set of stairs or the elevators, but others were trapped by locked exit doors or were crushed when the poorly constructed fire escape collapsed. Still others leapt to their deaths rather than face the fire. While the fire department quickly got the blaze extinguished, it still managed to kill a staggering number in the few minutes it raged. The tragedy caused a sensation in New York and eventually led to greater reforms for workplace safety.
von Drehle's story starts slowly as he anchors the fire in its context - rather than simply running with the sensational aspects of the tragedy, he offers insight into the social, political, and economic forces at play in the garment industry at the turn of the century. Seeing these forces at work early helps to explain the events of the book's final third, where reform was slow and punishment lacking despite the public outcry in the fire's wake. Also of note are the diagrams and photographs - I'm terrible at translating directional words into a mental picture, so these were hugely helpful in understanding the events.
Despite the sometimes brutal depictions of the victims' final moments, stripped of their protective contemporary euphemisms, von Drehle handles his subject with great sensitivity. Notably, he makes the extra (substantial) effort to compile what is believed to be the first and only complete list of the dead, along with the small scraps of information available about them. These tiny details, such as a grieving mother identifying her daughter's body based on a "unique darn in her sock," give the story its emotional power.
Overall, very well-done and affecting. 4/5.
While dealing with a historical subject probably helps matters, David von Drehle's Triangle: The Fire that Changed America manages to avoid this trap and tell the story of one of the greatest workplace tragedies in American history with clear-eyed insight. On March 25, 1911, 146 people (mostly young women) perished in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Fueled by heaps of fabric scraps, the fire quickly spread from a single scrap bin to engulf three floors of the factory. Some lucky workers were able to escape via one set of stairs or the elevators, but others were trapped by locked exit doors or were crushed when the poorly constructed fire escape collapsed. Still others leapt to their deaths rather than face the fire. While the fire department quickly got the blaze extinguished, it still managed to kill a staggering number in the few minutes it raged. The tragedy caused a sensation in New York and eventually led to greater reforms for workplace safety.
von Drehle's story starts slowly as he anchors the fire in its context - rather than simply running with the sensational aspects of the tragedy, he offers insight into the social, political, and economic forces at play in the garment industry at the turn of the century. Seeing these forces at work early helps to explain the events of the book's final third, where reform was slow and punishment lacking despite the public outcry in the fire's wake. Also of note are the diagrams and photographs - I'm terrible at translating directional words into a mental picture, so these were hugely helpful in understanding the events.
Despite the sometimes brutal depictions of the victims' final moments, stripped of their protective contemporary euphemisms, von Drehle handles his subject with great sensitivity. Notably, he makes the extra (substantial) effort to compile what is believed to be the first and only complete list of the dead, along with the small scraps of information available about them. These tiny details, such as a grieving mother identifying her daughter's body based on a "unique darn in her sock," give the story its emotional power.
Overall, very well-done and affecting. 4/5.
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