What were known as red legs. Jayhawkers. These are kansasians as he admits in his autobiography who feels the kansasans picked on them. To cross into missouri and get their revenge. So hes in an informal j jayhawking kansas regiment fighting in missouri. Then in 1864 he joins the kansas seventh which is the notorious jayhawking regimen. If you were a missourian and i said kansas seventh, you would know what that meant even probably today. And they had such a Bad Reputation for what they were carrying out in missouri that they got sent away from the kansas missouri border. He did see some service in the south and by the end of the war, hes back in st. Louis. Well, what did Buffalo Bills childhood in bleeding kansas and in his youth as a jayhawker in the civil war mean to him . You can watch this and other American History programs on our website where all our video is archived. Thats cspan. Org history. In 1911, the triangle shirtways factory in new york caught fire and 146 workers died 37 mostly women and immigrants. This was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in the united states. Members of the remember the Triangle Fire Coalition spoke about the events history, memory, and relevance to today. Its an hour and 15 minutes. Welcome. Welcome to the triangle factory fire in american memory, a conversation between historians and activists. You may notice theres cameras. We are being filmed by cspan, so were going to open up the conversation later. If you want to be part of the discussion, please step to the microphone so you can be heard. I am rob linne. I am out of delphi university. I am a Founding Member of the remember the Triangle Fire Coalition and a coauthor with my colleague andy sosin of the factory fire. I will briefly introduce my colleagues on the panel and they will have more time to tell you about themselves and their work shortly. All of us are are membmembers o remember the Triangle Fire Coalition which youll hear more about as we discuss. And we are all committed to keeping the memory of the victims alive and visible. We began as part of a team organizing a citywide commemoration for the centennial of the tragedy in 2011. This commemoration rapidly spread from a citywide commemoration in new york to a national and international commemorations around the world. We are educators, activists, and historians. Briefly, dr. Mary anne trasciatti is from Hofstra University as well as president of the remember the Triangle Fire Coalition which we are finding is no small task. Rose imperato is a Founding Member of the remember the Triangle Fire Coalition and is with Murphy Institute of labor studies with cuny here in new york. Dr. Andy sosin a Founding Member of the coalition and a coauthor with others of the new york city triangle factory fire. As members of an organization dedicated to memorializing an event that many diverse constituencies hold dear, we are very aware that context is everything. So our discussion today is not so much focused on parse events on that day, but on examining the movements, the art, the rhetoric, and the continued conflicts that have rippled out from that moment in a time a little over a hundred years ago. The site of the infamous triangle factory fire continues to serve the city and the nation as a living memorial. The memory of the triangle fire has been continually renewed and utilized as a touch stone in American History, american politics, and American Culture. Even after 100 years, the fire has not lost its resonance. Its power to evoke strong feelings of sadness and anger but also of hope. Perhaps the most consequenti consequentially, the triangle fire has not lost its relevance. Which we will have more to say about contemporary political discourse, im sure. That the triangle factory fire is still a potent symbol has been the result of persistent efforts on the part of many. Activists, unionists, artists, politicians, historians, educators, and citizens. To preserve the memory of this moment in history both as an affirmation of the individual dignity of each worker and as a usable past in the ongoing discourse surrounding labor issues in the u. S. And abroad. The meaning of the fire has been contested since the beginning. The year before the main street fire in new jersey killed dozens of young women in an unsafe new jersey factory. But their horrific deaths were not noticed enough to facilitate change. The triangle fire would be different. Played out in new york, a city where labor voice was rising and women were fighting to be counted. A city with dozens of competing newspapers. The morning after the tragedy, blazing newspaper headlines told the story of the mostly jewish and italian young women who perished the day before. The images were graphic and the rhetoric piercing. One paper shouted, how long will the workers permit themselves to be burned as well as enslaved in their shops. Blamed the owners w escaped the building while other human beings who piled up profits for them died in burned, crushed, mutilated heaps. The meaning of the fire, however, was contested from the beginning. City leaders were anxious about a further uprising and did not want the victims to become martyrs. Gainer announced the unidentified bodies would be interred in Evergreen Cemetery in brooklyn far away from Lower Manhattan to avoid protest. So the unions organized a mass funeral procession through Lower Manhattan. Thousands marched as hundreds of thousands lined the streets under low clouds and constant rain. When the silent marchers reached Washington Square, in sight of the factory building, one reporter noted a long drawn out heart piercing cry. The mingling of thousands of voices. Sort of a human thunder in the elemental storm. A cry that was perhaps the most impre impressive show of human grief ever in the city. This cry for grief was for once turned to action. Called the tragedy the fire that changed america. And perkins maintained years later that the new deal actually began on the day of the fire. Indeed, reformers and unionists seized the tragedy as a touch to stone for labor organizing. Unionship in new york swelled and a vast culture of unionism was born. Traditionally antiunion tammany hall became a driver of progressive change and surprisingly created a model for the National New Deal reforms to follow as well as the workplace standards we all expect today. And yet as the century progressed, memory of this Pivotal Moment has often waned. Our history books, hollywood films, and mass culture in general tend to feature the accomplishments of very important white men, so the story was largely lost to time save the yearly commemorations and family members. The 50th anniversary of the fire did see a resurgence of interest as leon stein published his work on the fire. Newspaper articles were written and survivors were interviewed. The decades between the 50th and 100th anniversary, of course, witnessed the rapid decline of labor and the story faded even more from collective memory in the city and abroad. As the centennial approached, i surveyed School Textbooks and found cursory treatment of the fire and the changes that rippled out. There may be a few paragraphs in a u. S. History book. The same that was given to the slocum fire. They were both tragedies that happened and that was the end of the story. Over the years what i would ask entering University Students, i teach student who is are going to be english teachers and social studies teachers about their knowledge of the tragedy. Few could raise their hand and they had a vague awareness. The story simply was not central to American Culture any longer. Now when i ask students entering this generation, the majority of students raised their hand and they know something about the triangle fire which is very encouraging. David vonn dralis important work in the General Press published in 2003 perhaps led to resurgence of interest that continued to this day. Inspired by his work, artists began the Public Movement chalk. The chalk project brings people out into the city every march 25th to chalk the names of triangle fire victims on the stoops where they live. This powerful act of naming the victims in a similar spirit of the Vietnam Memorial has inspired new ways of looking at the tragedy and the ways in which we memorialize the victims. My only personal experiences with the chalk project are the most profound. I often go with middle school classes. And its always a little tricky taking students out into the city, but they become very serious as they chalk the names and they become public teachers. People walk by and they see these kids who are not from the neighborhood. Why are you chalking up my stoop . And the students then tell the story about the triangle fire and they feel like theyre public historians, public teachers. And they never forget it. Teachers who i worked with when the kids see them later, they always talk about the chalk project. Remember when we chalked the names. My colleagues and i will discuss this dynamic more as the discussion unfolds, but i want to emphasize the chalk project to all of the efforts that have followed. I know its cliche to say a small group of people can make great change, but this simple project with chalk has sparked so much political activism that i feel a truth in the sentiment first hand. Just in the last few years, theres been so much creative output. Many plays about the fire have produced. Quilts have been sewn. Novels have been written. School curricula have been crafted. And much political discourse is framed by the triangle factory fire. And the activists who followed through on making things better. My niece recently sent me a play bill for a triangle fire play performed at the local high school in suburban houston. And mary anne recently got back from a street naming in italy for joseph zito. So we find that this story is once again central in our collective conscience and bringing people together across the country and overseas to Work Together for change. I can start preaching at this point. I tend to. So before i start preaching too much, i will turn over to my colleague professor Mary Anne Trasciatti of Hofstra University. Thank you. [ applause ] thanks, rob. And thank you, everyone, for being here today. So im going to begin with a question that i ask myself and then hopefully answer or at least begin to answer in this presentation. Its a question i certainly wont answer and its a bigger question and ive started writing about it and think about it far too often. But thats its an important question. And the question is, why does the memory of triangle stick . Why this and not some other things . That is a rhetorical question. What is there about triangle that moves people that maybe doesnt happen with other events . Other issues. In the u. S. Im sure you know, so many efforts are made to ignore temporary labor struggles and labor history. So what is there about the story of triangle that makes it so affecting and i use that word to get an affect. I mean, people feel something about this story. So what makes it so affecting for those who come into contact with it both at the time and now . And so here are just a few thoughts that i had in answer to that question. And i appreciate, you know, anything you might add later about why youre here, what you know, and what you think. So first of all, its a rich narrative, right . This is a story that can be told in a variety of ways. It can be framed. Im a communications scholar. Framing is an important concept to us. The story can be framed in a lot of ways. One way it cant be framed which is advantageous for memory in the u. S. Is a story of radical labor organizing or activism. The girls of triangle clara who led the uprising in 1926 became a communist. And in fact, the union that she helped to build wanted to deny her a pension because she was a communist. But in 1909 and 1911 she wasnt. The girls at triangle werent radicals. So that part of the story does not have to be effaced. These are innocents. Thats an advantage. The story is not a story of radicalism. It is, however, a story of migration, right . These are people who came here from italy, from russia, from other places. For work, for a better life. However you want to frame the story of migration. This is in part a story of migration. We in the coalition dont tell it that way. Although we are embarking on a project, a colleague and i are embarking on a project to map memorials to the victims i dont want to use that word to the triangle dead in italy. Which is in part to reframe the story as a story of migration. There are memorials in italy in sicily, for example, all 24 of the triangle dead from that region have been memorialized with street plaques and other kinds of images. So it is in part a story of migration. Its also a story about new york city. The fashion capital of the world. A destination of immigrants from everywhere. Its a story about Washington Square, right . Which is the Meeting Place for all kinds of people. And in particular it was in 1911. Its a story about worker struggles for better wages and safer working conditions. And by workers with regard to the story of triangle, i mean here particularly although not exclusively women workers. The term workers tends to be jendergendered when we speak ab. If you ask people to think of a worker particularly in labor studyings, they would imagine a guy. But triangle is about women workers. Thats the story we tend to tell in the coalition. We tend to begin the story with a struggle by women workers two years prior to triangle which you may know as the uprising of the 20,000. Actually began with a walkout at triangle. It involved mostly jewish women workers. And they were led by clara lenlik. This was not a popular move when it began. And part of the reason is because the women who were striking, who were outdoors asking for better wages and safer working conditions were in public space unchaperoned. Right . How dare young women advertise that they work with their bodies in public space. So analogies were made between striking women workers and prostitutes. They are both, in a sense, streetwalkers. Right . Advertising the use of their bodies as a way to make money. And so they were treated very hostilely. Clara had several ribs broken. They were arrested, thrown into jail. And the prostitutes in the prison cells said, wow, you guys are getting treated worse than we do and we make more money than you do. So there were all kinds of linkages that were made. It was only the presence of middle class women dressed well and, you know, untouchable, so to speak, that helped to stem the violence. So that strike was both a success and a failure. The strike succeeded, it brought the union is to sharpen Safety Measures but failed to bring those the to triangle. The owners held out and resisted. So without a union and without enforceable laws to protect workers, the factory system was a tragedy waiting to happen at triangle and, indeed, it did happen. And when it happened, it was very visible. And thats, i think, the second answer that i have for why this event is so important. There were other fires in new york city. And ive actually, you know, read other accounts of people watching them from Washington Square park. There was a fire right before triangle that was deadly and awful. But it was largely invisible so no one saw it. That was in newark. There were other workplace deaths at the time. Horrific accidents in mining, railroads, timber, meat packing, you name it. Okay . But triangle was visible. In fact, not just visible, it engaged the full sensorium of new york workers. It was audible and smellable as well. So new yorkers, middle class new yorkers, affluent new yorkers werent used to having their senses assaulted. Of course workers were. The loud sounds, the injuries. The smells, the sights. But well healed new yorkers were not. So they saw smoke, womens bodies plunging out the window and exploding on the ground. They heard fire bells, screams, and of course the iconic thud, dead, thud, dead, thud, dead reported by william sheppard. They smelled smoke. They smelled wet, burned stuff. And although horrific as this sounds, i suspect they smelled charred flesh, human flesh. So this was a material rhetoric, right . It acted on the whole person. The mind as well as the body. And it said to people, listen and act. The visibility of triangle, though perhaps not the other sensory reaches were expanded in the repertoire. Looking at the women, illustrations of the disaster, some of these were quite macabre. Very accusatory. And they still retain the power to move us. And these images, this language was reported in english language papers but also italian language newspapers and yiddish newspapers. We are still in the Early Research on the newspapers but one thing we know is, for example, the language of triangle is a little bit different when reported by the italians. This wasnt a tragedy. It was a crime. Okay . It was a very, very explicit indictment of the system. In fact, triangle became so resonant that it is now in italy synonymous with the international womans day. In fact, it was only in 1987 that historians published the finding that the fire actually didnt happen on march 8th. It happened on march 25th. And in 19 so that and what did italians do since theyre really good at reworking anything for their advantage . Well, its even better that its not a historically accurate story. Its a legend and its even better to build a holiday on a legend, right . But this is how powerful these images were. And so what else . Well, the rituals that rob mentioned. Workers mourned their own. They performed their grief, their solidarity, and determination to seek justice. The funerals went on for days. The roots crisscrossed