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Labor Arts | The Triangle Fire | Mourning and Funerals
The Triangle Fire: One Hundred Years After
Mourning and Funerals

Funerals were held in the week after the fire. The victims' bodies were buried in the Jewish and Italian cemeteries on the Lower East Side. The ILGWU and the Women's Trade Union League petitioned the city to hold a funeral for the seven unidentified workers. The city agreed to bury the seven in Evergreen Cemetery in the East New York section of Brooklyn but, fearing mass protest, resisted the idea of a public funeral. The interments were scheduled for April 5. The ILGWU and the WTUL immediately issued a call for a funeral parade. One group of mourners assembled on 22nd Street near Fourth Avenue; another formed downtown at ILGWU headquarters at 151 Clinton Street. The processions met at Washington Square Park and marched to the 23rd Street Ferry. About one hundred mourners rushed on board the ferryboat to accompany the caskets to the Evergreen Cemetery. More than 120,000 joined the funeral processions, with another 250,000 lining the route.

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Funeral procession

Brown Brothers photograph, courtesy Kheel Center.

Crowd of mourners watching funeral procession.

Brothers photograph, courtesy Kheel Center.

Protesting factory firetraps.

Brothers photograph, courtesy Kheel Center.

Funeral on the Lower East Side.

Brown Brothers photograph, courtesy Kheel Center.

Catholic Church, Italian neighborhood.

Brown Brothers photograph, courtesy Kheel Center.