Month: March 2013

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Posted by

1

At 4:45pm on Saturday March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of a factory in New York City. Workers had finished their work on shirtwaists–the women’s blouses produced in the Triangle Factory–and were ready to collect their paychecks. They were interrupted by shouts of “Fire!” Samuel Bernstein, one of the managers, tried to throw buckets of water on the fire, but the material used to make shirtwaists was highly flammable.

Bernstein got nowhere with the water buckets. When he attempted to turn on a fire hose, no water came out. He and the women working on the eighth floor realized they had to escape the flames. They pushed each other toward one of the exits, but the door was locked. Finally, someone came with a key and opened it. One of the girls used the telephone to warn the owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, on the tenth floor.

Escape Attempts

Horse-drawn fire engines raced to the scene. Unfortunately, their hoses could not reach the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch building where the factory was located. Some people from the eighth floor managed to get down from the stairwells to safety. Workers on the tenth floor tried to escape the flames by climbing up on the roof. The quick thinking of a professor teaching a class in the building next door saved them. When he saw the flames, the professor and his students set up ladders so that employees could climb from the factory roof to the roof of the school.

Trapped Workers

Not everyone could find an escape route. Some tried climbing onto the fire escape, but it collapsed under the weight of so many people. With the flames trapping them inside, many workers decided to jump out the factory windows. Firefighters held nets below in an attempt to catch the jumpers. The nets weren’t strong enough. No one who jumped survived. After half an hour, the firemen managed to stifle the flames by taking their hoses inside the building. By that time, 146 people were dead.

At ten feet tall, the building was one of New York’s skyscrapers. Hundreds of people worked long hours at the sewing machines, sitting elbow-to-elbow and receiving little pay. Most of the workers were female Italian and Russian immigrants, though some men worked there, too.

Call for Fire Safety in Factories

After the tragedy, many people called for better safety standards for factories as well as better working conditions. Survivor Pauline Cuoio Pepe said, “We [the survivors] didn’t sleep right, always afraid. We were also angry. ‘What did they close the door for? What did they think we were going out with? What are we gonna do, steal a shirtwaist? Who the heck wanted a shirtwaist?’”

Owners Harris and Blanck were criticized for not following fire safety procedures. They kept doors locked while workers were inside, the fire hoses didn’t work, stairways were too narrow, and the fire escape didn’t reach the ground. New York State government officials set up a commission to study factory safety. Among other improvements, the commission required tall buildings to have sprinkler systems. Many laws passed to increase the safety of workers in factories as a result of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. As committee member Frances Perkins stated years later “they [the Triangle Factory workers] did not die in vain and we will never forget them.”

The History of the Easter Egg

Posted by

0

If you celebrate Easter, you’re probably planning to dye Easter eggs this month. But do you know how the egg became a symbol of Easter?

Eggs are often associated with new life. Ancient civilizations believed that the world began with the cracking of an enormous egg. The ancient Egyptians, for example, thought that the sky and the earth produced the egg that created
the universe. People in ancient Persia, Greece, and China gave each other gifts of eggs during spring festivals to celebrate the new growing season.

Since people did not always write things down in ancient times, we can’t know for certain whether the idea of Easter egg came from an older civilization. Supposedly eggs were dyed and eaten at the ancient spring festivals. The first record of the term Easter egg didn’t show up in Western European books until the fifteenth century. Some historians believe that missionaries living in Persia or Greece brought the tradition of coloring eggs to the West.

During the Middle Ages, no one ate meat during the winter. The people were both trying to conserve food and observe the custom of fasting for Lent. In addition to giving up meat, they also didn’t eat eggs. Instead, they saved their eggs and brought them in baskets to church, where a priest blessed the eggs.

When the Easter holiday arrived, people were allowed to eat eggs again. This was considered such a treat that eggs were given as presents. Children sometimes received an egg for Easter from their parents, or they went from house to house begging for eggs like America’s trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

Belarusian_Easter_Eggs

Belarusian Easter Eggs

Decorating Easter eggs became an art, especially in Eastern Europe. Many of the eggs were dyed red to symbolize the blood of Christ, but other colors such as yellow appeared, too. In Poland and Russia, girls made elaborate designs on their Easter eggs. Some popular symbols included a sun for good luck, a deer for good health, and flowers for love and beauty. Other eggs had crisscrossed lines or checkerboard patterns.

Immigrants from Europe brought the art of decorating Easter eggs with them when they settled in America. Games involving Eater eggs that were popular hundreds of years ago are still played today. One games is the Easter egg roll. In this game, the goal is to roll as many eggs as possible without cracking the shells. The White House in Washington, D.C. hosts an annual Easter Egg Roll.

The first White House Egg Roll started during James Madison’s presidency. At the time, it was held on the grounds of the Capital. One account of the event states, “at first the children sit sedately in long rows; each has brought a basket of colored hard-boiled eggs, and those on the upper terrace send them rolling to the line next below…and as the sport warms, those on top who have rolled all the eggs they brought finally roll themselves, shrieking with laughter.”

The game was discontinued in 1878 because of the wear and tear on the Capital lawn, but started again during the presidency of Rutherford Hayes. Hayes’ wife allowed the children to use the White House lawn. With the exception of the Civil and World Wars when the game was not held, the White House Egg Roll became a tradition that remains to this day.