Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire, 100 years later

AUDIO RECORDINGS

Survivor Oral Histories

Sigmund Arywitz, California State Commissioner of Labor, conducted the oral history interviews with survivors living in California in 1957 and 1986, for which we have Arywitz's audio recordings.
Listen to the interviews and read the transcripts


Frances Perkins Lecture

Excerpt from lecture given 30 September 1964, by Frances Perkins at Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Listen to the lecture and read the transcript


WNYC Recordings

WNYC has made the following recordings available to the Kheel Center. You can listen to all of the recordings at the WNYC web site.


Triangle Fire 50th Anniversary Commemoration, March 25, 1961

Courtesy of the New York City Municipal Archives
Total running time: 39:24

The 1961 commemoration of the Triangle fire's 50th anniversary was held at the site of the fire on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street in Manhattan. It was hosted by David Dubinsky, President of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Honored guests included 14 survivors of the fire, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Former Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, ILGWU organizers Rose Schneiderman and Pauline Newman, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America President Jacob Potofsky, Mayor Robert Wagner, Fire Commissioner Edward Cavanaugh, and others. Speakers included Reverend Yager, Chaplin Eckhardt, David Dubinsky, NYU Professor Robert Goldman, Frances Perkins, Edward Cavanaugh, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Read the transcript of David Dubinsky's address


Triangle Fire 79th Anniversary Commemoration, March 26, 1990

Courtesy of the WNYC Archives
Total running time: 37:42

The 1990 commemoration of the Triangle fire's 79th anniversary was held at the site of the 1911 fire on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street in Manhattan. It was hosted by Jay Mazur, President of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Honored guests and speakers included Rabbi Allen Kaplan, Mayor David Dinkins, Fire Commissioner Carlos Rivera; striking workers from the Domsey Trading Corporation. Speakers also acknowledged the 87 people who died the previous day at the Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx.


"This Was News!" Federal Theater Radio Division of the Works Progress Administration, Program #8, March 20, 1938

Courtesy of the WNYC Archives
Total running time: 5:22

A series dramatizing the week's news from history, this episode focused on the Triangle factory fire, March 25th, 1911, in New York City.


"Speaking For Ourselves" by Amy Goodman and Kathy Dobie, WNYC, March 28, 1987

Courtesy of the WNYC Archives
Total running time: 12:39

A discussion of the Triangle fire includes remarks by 94 year old Triangle fire survivor Pauline Pepe made during the 1985 commemoration of that tragedy. Also speaking were New York City Fire Commissioner Joseph Spinnato who remarked on the fire in the Schomburg Plaza, a Harlem high rise, that killed 7 people the previous Sunday, Triangle Fire author Leon Stein, and New York State Assembly member Frank Barbaro, among others.

Sweatshop conditions in the early 1900's

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