Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy - Historical Nonfiction Book on Workplace Safety & Labor Rights - Perfect for Students, Historians, and Social Activists

This book is ostensibly about the March 25, 1911 fire at the Triangle Waist Factory which killed 146 workers because of inadequate fire protection and locked doors. In reality, though, it is the story of poor, mostly immigrant workers and their families struggling to make it in the "New World". It's the story of the struggle for rights - labor rights, women's rights, etc. - that has recurred on a cyclical basis as each new generation has had to relearn the importance of and fight for the rights which previous generations also struggled for. Although the story of the Triangle Waist Fire is all but forgotten today (a tragedy in itself, hopefully remedied in large part by Albert Marrin's powerful book), its legacy continues to this day.Marrin opens with a bare bones account of the fire and a brief glimpse of life in New York City around the early twentieth century. But to understand the fire and its context, one must first understand the people and the social conditions involved. So Marrin backs up his story to explore the lives of immigrants - mostly Italians and Russian Jews, particularly women and girls - who made up the bulk of the menial labor force in the garment industry around the turn of the century. Due to economic and political pressures in their own countries, these immigrants were pressed to venture to America with little more than the clothes on their backs and the money for their fare. They endured harsh conditions only to find a new life of hardship packed tightly into the tenements of New York City. But this new life, as hard as it was, offered relative safety and opportunity for advancement not to be had in the Old World, so they worked hard and made the most of it.Those who had come before, meanwhile, had already achieved their success, and the rich among them lived in lavish mansions along "Millionaire's Row" dining on lobster and smoking cigarettes rolled in hundred dollar bills. The contracts in material life was stark, but the real inequality came in the non-material aspects: basic rights, education, working conditions and quality of life. There was none of the social "safety net" which we today take for granted (and which therefore is gradually being eroded), so every man and woman (and many children) had to rely on him or herself, the family, and perhaps the neighborhood.Marrin next documents the change in working conditions that led to the creation of the Triangle Waist Factory. Originally all clothes were hand-sewn and tailor-made for the individual wearer (the poor would wear ill-fitting cast-offs from those better off). But the invention of things like the sewing machine, paper patterns, and cloth cutters gave birth to manufactured clothes. These clothes brought a feeling of democracy because even most of the poor could afford decent clothes, but it also brought the rise of the sweatshop, where individual parts of the clothing production process were done assembly-line style in various tenements with "schleppers" hauling materials between locations.The Triangle Waist Factory as one of the first modern "New-Model" factories in which all parts of the production process were brought under one roof. This saved a great deal of money for the manufacturers and even had some benefits for the workers - cleaner air and better light, for instance. But it also took workers out of smaller, local family-controlled work environments and made them "wage slaves" under the watchful eyes of supervisors who made them work long hours, cheated them of break time, docked their pay for supplies and accidents, and locked them into the factory.The factory did give workers one other significant benefit, however - the opportunity to meet and organize, albeit often surreptitiously. Although factory owners worked hard to prevent it, often using violent means, workers eventually formed unions and began demanding their rights through protests and strikes. Marrin gives a nice overview of the often rather sordid history of unions and labor relations, including the use of mob violence by both sides. Women were initially shut out of unions, but the garment workers (who were mostly women) formed their own. These unions were supported (to a point, anyway), by some wealthy women of the "Mink Coat Brigade". Through their perseverance, the unions eventually won some rights, including reduced hours and protections from cheating and wage docking.None of those new benefits, however, were enough to save many of the workers of the Triangle Waist Factory. This chapter is particularly gut-wrenching and heart-breaking. No one knows for sure how the fire started (although illicit smoking by male cutters is the most likely culprit), but once it started, it engulfed everything in the "fireproof" building within minutes. No sprinklers were available to douse the fire and frightened, unprepared workers ran madly to escape the smoke and flames. Some found stairwell doors locked. Some simply flung themselves out the windows, perhaps hoping to grab onto rungs of the fire ladders which reached only to the sixth floor.The tragedy and outrage of the Triangle Fire could not be ignored, and it gave workers a platform and a voice they would not otherwise have had. In the wake of the fire it soon became politically expedient - even necessary - to initiate investigations against businesses who were formerly ignored. The owners of the Triangle Waist Factory were prosecuted (although acquitted), other factories were investigated, laws were changed, and decent labor and safety standards were decreed (and even enforced somewhat, although not uniformly). Although it was always an uphill struggle, workers eventually earned many of the "New Deal" rights we enjoy today.In the final chapter, Marrin explores the world of labor relations and "sweatshops" today, both in New York City where new waves of immigrants work in re-constituted sweatshops, and abroad where the majority of our clothes and many other items are made by Asian workers earning a few dollars a week. Marrin also explores the flip side of the issue, for if workers in poor areas don't have sweatshops, then they have nothing - no way to earn a living or feed their families. Of course, the hope would be that those workers too can organize and demand better wages, benefits and working conditions (admittedly easier said than done in today's globalized world).I highly recommend this book. It should be required reading in middle and high school history courses and every adult should read it too, especially those who believe that if only the government would stop interfering, "market forces" would work out for everyone's benefit. In the early twentieth century, businesses had few pesky regulations to dictate their actions and, among other things, 146 people lost their lives in an unsafe factory. We can have similar incidents again if we're not careful.