Striking during the cold winter weather of 1909–1910 was a hardship for the young women and their families. Since the union was small, it didn’t have a large strike fund set aside. The smaller shops were more likely to settle with the union quickly because they could not afford a work stoppage. But the larger companies formed a group called the Association of Waist and Dress Manufacturers of New York and vowed to hold out against a settlement.
As strike funds became scarce and more and more of the smaller shops settled, enthusiasm for the strike began to dwindle. In mid-February 1910, the strike ended. By then, the union had signed agreements with nearly 340 shops. But the agreements with about thirteen of the larger manufacturers were compromises. One of these shops was the Triangle Waist Company, which had kept its doors open throughout the strike. In the end, Triangle did not accede to all the union’s demands, including the demand for a closed shop — that is, to hire only union workers. Conditions at shops like Triangle did not really improve.
The Triangle Waist Company was located on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the ten-story Asch Building in lower Manhattan. On Saturday, March 25, 1911, at approximately 4:45 p.m., a fire started on the eighth floor. The bell to end work had just started ringing. In another few minutes, the workers would have been gone.
The fire began on the eighth floor and spread rapidly. Within minutes the heat and smoke became unbearable, and the fire soon spread to the ninth floor. In the ensuing panic, girls found that the door to the stairs on the Washington Place side of the building was locked. Some girls were pushed to the windows by the heat and flames, and from there they jumped. The firemen’s ladders reached only the sixth floor. The nets did nothing to break their falls.
The Asch Building was supposedly “fireproof,” but it had no sprinklers. Its one inadequate fire escape collapsed under the heat and the weight of the people on it, throwing workers to their deaths. The Triangle fire was brought under control in less than a half hour. Ironically, the building itself didn’t suffer much structural damage. But 146 workers, mostly young women and girls, died.
New Yorkers were shocked by the tragedy. On April 2, at a memorial meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House, labor organizer Rose Schneiderman made an impassioned speech castigating citizens and public officials who had not supported the workers’ strike in 1909. Giving money in the aftermath of the tragedy was not enough, she insisted.
In the aftermath of the Triangle fire, the Factory Investigating Commission, headed by Robert Wagner and Al Smith (who later became governor of New York), was formed to investigate conditions in factories. Eventually the state of New York passed extensive reform laws that began to address the need for safety standards in the workplace.
Despite pouring rain, more than 120,000 people participated in a memorial march on April 5, 1911, in honor of seven unidentified victims of the fire. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, owners of the Triangle Waist Company, were investigated and brought to trial for manslaughter, but found not guilty.
The Lower East Side was characterized by lines of laundry hanging between buildings, crossing courtyards and air shafts.
The bustling streets of the Lower East Side were filled with pushcarts, peddlers, and people shopping and socializing.
Children play on a tenement fire escape, which could serve as an extension of the apartment, or a refuge from sweltering heat in the summers.
An Italian family works making artificial flowers in a dim tenement apartment, lit only by a gas lamp. Laundry and rags hang above them.
In the sweatshops of the New York City garment industry, conditions were terrible for workers. Doors and windows were frequently locked, and the workers were almost always underpaid and forced to work long hours.
Women march to New York’s City Hall during the long, difficult weeks of the shirtwaist strike. There were many cases in which the strikers were beaten or arrested by police officers and abused by company goons or other workers.
Firefighters work to extinguish the fire smoldering within the Triangle Waist Company. However, they encountered disastrous difficulties. Their hoses were unable to reach the top floors of the building, and the nets were too weak to support the girls jumping to escape the fire.
In the aftermath of the Triangle Waist Company fire, mourners came together to honor the victims and pay their respects to the unidentified dead. The 400,000 who turned up marched silently in the rain, and vowed to see justice in the campaign for worker protection.
* * *
The Uprising of the Twenty Thousand
Dedicated to the Waistmakers of 1909
In the black of the winter of nineteen nine,
When we froze and bled on the picket line,
We showed the world that women could fight
And we rose and won with women’s might.
Chorus:
Hail the waistmakers of nineteen nine,
Making their stand on the picket line,
Breaking the power of those who reign,
Pointing the way, smashing the chain.
And we gave new courage to the men
Who carried on in nineteen ten
And shoulder to shoulder we’ll win through,
Led by the I.L.G.W.U.
* * *
Labor union song about the 1909 shirtwaist strike.
Italians came to America from many parts of Italy, where they often spoke different dialects. In New York City, a kind of pidgin (called Itaglish) developed in the marketplace.
Italian or Sicilian Dialect
Babbo: Daddy, familiar term for “Father”
Buon giorno: good morning
cortile: courtyard
fasci dei lavoratori: workers’ unions
grazie: thank you
grignollo/a: greenhorn, newcomer
mio padre: my father
onore di famiglia: family honor
paesani: neighbors, people from the same town
salotto: parlor, front room
sarta: seamstress or tailoress
sì: yes
soggiorno: dining and living area in Sicilian household
torrone: almond candy
turnialettu: bed flounce
Zi’: Sicilian familiar dialect for “uncle” (zio) or “aunt” (zia)
zuppa: soup
Itaglish (American Loan Words)
boifrendo: boyfriend
bosso: boss
operatrici: sewing machine operators
scioppa: shop
worka: work
Yiddish Words
pogrom: raids and massacres
shetl: Jewish town
sheitel: wig
Writing Hear My Sorrow has been a deeply rewarding experience. I have learned so much, and wish to thank the many people who helped make this book possible. Throughout this project I was fortunate to meet Amy Griffin, Lisa Sandell, and Beth Levine, three amazing and talented editors. I am especially grateful to Lisa for her encouragement and thoughtfulness, and to Amy for her enthusiasm and unflagging support. Thanks also to Steven Malk, my agent, for setting me on the path that led into this fascinating period of history.
I feel fortunate to have had the advice of two scholars whose writings and research have been extraordinarily helpful. Donna R. Gabaccia, Charles H. Stone Professor of American History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, was thorough and generous in reviewing the manuscript, and her book on social change among Italian immigrants on the Lower East Side was invaluable. Dr. Gabaccia introduced me to Dr. Jennifer Guglielmo, Assistant Professor of History at Smith College, whose research enabled me to better understand Italian labor history during this period, and who also gave generously of her time to read the manuscript and respond to queries. Any errors are my own.
A special thanks goes to author Susan Campbell Bartoletti, whose advice during one long phone call was more helpful than she probably ever imagined, and whose work I deeply admire. I would also like to thank the staff members who assisted me wit
h research at libraries and museums, especially Patrizio Sizione and Barbara Morley at Cornell University’s Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, and the library staff of the Museum of the City of New York, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, the New-York Historical Society, and New York University.
Mahalo to my dear friend Elisa Johnston, her daughter Kate, and late mother Laurie Johnston, for welcoming me into their family home on Jones Street in Greenwich Village. I will always remember our visit to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. My husband, Andy Thomas, and my children, Rebekah and Dimitri, who bring me joy every day. I am fortunate to have many people whose friendship and support sustains me day to day. A special thanks to my sisters, Janice Fairbrother and Bonnie Johnson, my friends, especially Michele Hill, Vicki Hemphill, Deborah Wiles, and Jane Kurtz, and all of my Whitman College colleagues.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:
Cover portrait by Tim O’Brien.
Cover background: Culver Pictures, New York.
Morris Rosenfeld’s poem in honor of the Triangle fire victims, which is excerpted on page 153 of this book, was first published in the Jewish Daily Forward on March 29, 1909. It has been reprinted and translated in The Triangle Fire by Leon Stein (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1962), pages 145–146.
Rose Schneiderman’s speech at the Metropolitan Opera House on April 2, 1911, which is excerpted on page 158 of this book, was first published in The Survey, April 8, 1911. It is quoted in Out of the Sweatshop: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy by Leon Stein, editor, (New York: Quadrangle/New Times Book Company, 1977), pages 196–197.
Tenement clotheslines, Collections of the Library of Congress, No. LC-D4-36490.
Lower East Side market, Collection of the New-York Historical Society, Negative no. 71078.
Children on fire escape, Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Tenement House Department, New York City, Negative no. 31.93.14.
Family making artificial flowers, Getty Images, New York.
Garment factory, Underwood Picture Archives/Super Stock, New York.
Women picketers, Library of Congress, No. LC-USZ62-49516.
Picketers marching to City Hall, UNITE Archives Kheel enter, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Triangle factory fire, Getty Images, New York.
Triangle fire memorial parade, UNITE Archives Kheel Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Memorial parade in the rain, UNITE Archives Kheel Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
“The Uprising of the Twenty Thousand” song from Let’s Sing! Educational Department, International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, New York, New York, n.d.
About the writing of Hear My Sorrow, Deborah Hopkinson says, “Before I began this book, I knew very little about the 1909 shirtwaist strikes and the Triangle Waist Company fire. To research the story, I consulted many books and articles, poured over library photo collections, listened to oral history tapes, visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and wandered through the neighborhoods where Angela and her family would have lived.
“The story seemed to really come alive at the moment I stood on the sidewalk outside the building that once housed the Triangle Waist Company, and imagined myself there on that March afternoon so long ago.
“It has been a privilege, and a responsibility, to write about these brave young women. Most of their fellow citizens didn’t see these young immigrant workers as individual human beings, with hopes and dreams. It took a tragedy, and the ceaseless efforts of workers, labor organizers, and reformers, to help bring about real improvements in factories.
“While we now have laws to protect workers, tragedies can still happen if laws are not enforced. On September 3, 1991, twenty-five people, mostly women, died in the Imperial Food Products chicken-processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Another fifty-three people were injured, and forty-nine children were orphaned in the disaster. Some of the workers who tried to escape couldn’t get out, because the exits had been locked or blocked to prevent people from stealing. Although there were laws, the plant had never had an official state inspection in its eleven years. Following the fire, North Carolina passed new laws for worker safety. The plant was torn down in 2001 to make way for a memorial park.”
Deborah Hopkinson is the author of such award-winning children’s books as Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt; Girl Wonder, A Baseball Story in Nine Innings; and A Band of Angels. Her nonfiction book, Shutting Out the Sky: Life in the Tenements of New York 1880–1924, also chronicles this period of New York’s history. It was selected as one of the New York Public Library’s 100 Books for Reading and Sharing, an ALA Notable Trade Book in Social Studies, and it was awarded an Orbis Pictus Honor and a Jane Addams Honor.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Angela Denoto is a fictional character, created by the author, and her journal and the epilogue are works of fiction.
Copyright © 2004 by Deborah Hopkinson
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
DEAR AMERICA®, SCHOLASTIC, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hopkinson, Deborah.
Hear my sorrow: the diary of Angela Denoto, a shirtwaist worker / by Deborah Hopkinson
p. cm. — (Dear America)
ISBN 0-439-22161-7
Summary: Forced to drop out of school at the age of fourteen to help support her family, Angela, an Italian immigrant, works long hours for low wages in a garment factory, and becomes a participant in the shirtwaist worker strikes of 1909.
[1. Factories — Fiction. 2. Labor disputes — Fiction. 3. Immigrants — Fiction. 4. Italian Americans — Fiction. 5. Diaries — Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.) — History —1898–1951 — Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.H778125 He 2004
[Fic] 22 2003021454
CIP AC
* * *
The display type was set in PanAm Regular.
Photo research by Amla Sanghvi
Cover portrait by Tim O’Brien
Cover background: Culver Pictures, New York
First edition, October 2004
e-ISBN 978-0-545-45554-1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Dear America: Hear My Sorrow Page 12
