Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (documentary film)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1itk1p
Discussion 4
Initial Post: After watching the documentary film “The Triangle Fire,” write a post in the first person, as though you were a worker in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Describe what it is like to work there, using at least two specific examples from the film, and describe how you feel about working at the factory.
Response Post: respond to the post above, drawing on what you learned from the film. Write in the first person, as though you are a person from the time period (another worker or reformer), and describe how you think improvements can be achieved for working conditions.
“Working in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory every day with my seventeen-year-old, we would ride the wooded frame elevator to the eighth or ninth floor. We would work around fourteen hours per day on a two-dollar minimum wage. I would sow with an old petal pump big machine that made 30 stitches a mint in the same environment that would surround me every day. My sore hands and my sons would be scared by the needles consistently. Every day it became a physical and mental challenge to go to work. By the end of the day, I was expected to make 3,000 stitches without any mistakes and zero exceptions as my tense neck and back from slouching would cry from the long shifts that consisted of no breaks. Spacing out during my job was the only self-entertainment and break I had from this cruelty job as a woman.”