Triangle Fire Memorial

On the afternoon of March 25, 1911, 146 workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory died here in the space of 15 minutes. Most were immigrants or the children of immigrants, and nearly all were women or girls. They died from smoke and fire, huddled under workbenches or trying to break down doors the factory owners had locked against them. They died leaping from ninth-floor windows, falling so hard they smashed through the sidewalk below. They died trying to save one another. They died from the cruel indifference of their bosses and from the negligence of city authorities. They died with their sisters, mothers, daughters, and brothers. But they did not die in vain. Their deaths inspired a renewed fight for social justice, a struggle for worker rights and safety that would transform America. The remembrance also honors the survivors, the witnesses, and all those who took up the fight for basic human dignity in the workplace, and those who do so to this day.

New York, New York · United States