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THE
JEWISH LIGHT
A New Book Examines The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire — Which A Contributor Worries His Father Might Have Started By Susie Davidson
A deadly fire ripped through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Greenwich Village on March 25, 1911. The photo shows the gutted remains of the tenth floor, with only the floors and walls intact. (Bettman/Getty Images)
BOSTON (JTA) – Martin Abramowitz sits in Brookline’s Caffe Nero wearing a “Jews in Baseball” hat. It’s a nod to his position as CEO and founder of the nonprofit Jewish Major Leaguers, which produces baseball cards featuring Jewish players. I ask about his Durham Bulls T-shirt. “It’s a long story,” he answers. The tale he wants to tell is much more significant and has nothing to do with sports. Rather, it has to do with the worst industrial fire in New York history and one of the most important events in the history of the American labor movement. March 25 marked the 111th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant garment workers, mainly women, in just 18 minutes. Friday will also saw the release
of “Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire,” edited by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti. The 19 contributors include writers, artists, activists, scholars and family members of the Triangle workers. Among the contributors is Abramowitz, 81, who attributes his very existence, as well as those of his children and their descendants, to the fact that his father, a cutter in the doomed factory, escaped the fire. And after devoting years of research to the tragedy, he has also come to grips with a painful possibility: that his father accidentally started the fire that, as the book describes it, “pierced the perpetual conscience of citizens everywhere.” “I have never been able to conclusively determine that my father caused the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,” said Abramowitz. Indeed, neither his father nor any other single figure has been implicated in dropping the burning ash into the scrap bin that may have caused the inferno. Nonetheless, even the possibility has been a burden. “Regardless of whether or not it was his ash, I’m haunted by the fact that he must have been haunted for his entire life,” Abramowitz said. “He must have had a sense of, or a
question about his own responsibility.” Five hundred workers were toiling on the eighth, ninth and 10th floors of the Asch Building in Greenwich Village, cutting and stitching the fashionable cotton blouses known as “waists,” when the fire broke out. The owners of the factory had locked many of the stairwell and exit doors in an effort to monitor breaks and maintain order (and also, Abramowitz said, to prevent the “girls” from pilfering materials). Many workers consequently jumped to their deaths while helpless firefighters and traumatized pedestrians looked on. There was no doubt that poor safety conditions turned a small fire into a deathtrap. The factory’s Jewish owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were subsequently acquitted in December 1911 of first-and second-degree manslaughter charges, although ultimately found liable for wrongful death in a 1913 civil suit. Labor unions, galvanized by the tragedy, demanded better working conditions and won recruits, and the city passed reforms to workplace safety that would eventually become federal law. But how did the fire start? According to David Von Drehle’s 2003 book, “Triangle: The Fire That Changed America,” the fire
began in a scrap bin belonging to a cloth “cutter” on the eighth floor. The cutter tried to extinguish the flames, and, when he couldn’t, escaped. Who was that cutter? Von Drehle names him as Isidore Abramowitz, the same name as Martin’s father.
Isidore Abramowitz, upper left in photo with his family, worked as a “cutter” at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory at the time of the deadly 1911 fire. (Courtesy Martin Abramowitz)
It’s impossible to determine whose ash it was, and Von Drehle acknowledges that “maybe it was another cutter.” But in search of answers, Martin Abamowitz has buried himself in the National Archives, U.S. Census records and family history. In 1940s working-class Jewish Brooklyn, Abramowitz’s father, Isidore, cut patterns for women’s dresses and belonged to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Later, in the 1950s and ’60s, See NEW BOOK on Page
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