Memory in Cloth
Safety and Solidarity for New York City Garment Workers
1910. Courtesy of ILGWU Archives, Kheel Center, Cornell University.
Did you know that NYU’s Brown Building once housed the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory? Like this typical 1910 garment factory, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company (located in what was then known as the Asch Building) was praised as a solid, “modern, fireproof” edifice. However, fire truck ladders could not reach the top floors where the fire broke out. 146 workers perished, many locked into the building, forced to jump to their deaths.