Local 25 of the ILGWU organized a rally against the unsafe working conditions that led to the disaster. Meanwhile the Women's Trade Union League led a campaign to investigate such conditions among Triangle workers, to collect testimonies, and to promote an investigation. Within a month of the fire the governor of New York State appointed the Factory Investigating Commission. For five years, this commission conducted a series of statewide hearings that resulted in the passage of important factory safety legislation. Frances Perkins, later to become Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, watched the Asch Building burn, an event that influenced her decision to become a lifelong advocate for workers. Perkins assisted in the factory investigation from her position as executive secretary of the New York Committee on Safety.

See documents:
Blame Shifted, New York Times, March 28, 1911 Factory Investigating Commission Report, 1912
Frances Perkins 1964 lecture excerpt on Triangle Fire

Labor and management in the garment trades cooperated in the ongoing work of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control to set and maintain standards of sanitation in the workplace. This board, consisting of representatives from the clothing industry and from the union, was established a year prior to the Triangle Fire in the aftermath of the 1910 Cloakmakers' Strike. It conducted its own investigations and continued to inspect and monitor health and safety conditions. It set sanitary standards exceeding the legal requirements and, because the manufacturers' association and the union had jointly approved the standards, was able to enforce those standards in the shops that it monitored.

The ILGWU, in concert with others in the labor movement and progressive organizations, would continue a long and difficult battle to achieve the right of workers to safe, decent working conditions. The event, as it faded from immediate public outrage, was not forgotten nor was it isolated in the course of the history of American workers. It did point out the many serious problems facing factory workers and paved the way for attempts at remedies through protective legislation. In the immediate years following the fire, a flurry of legislation perfected old laws or introduced new ones, which somewhat improved working conditions.

Justice?
Eight months after the fire, a jury acquitted Blanck and Harris, the factory owners, of any wrong doing. The task of the jurors had been to determine whether the owners knew that the doors were locked at the time of the fire.

See documents:
147 Dead, Nobody Guilty, Literary Digest, January 1912
Indictments in the Asch Fire Case;Outlook, April 22, 1911
Placing the Responsibility, Outlook, April 29, 1911

List of Witnesses Called to Testify at the Trial (Compiled by Kheel Center Archives)

Customarily, the only way out for workers at quitting time was through an opening on the Green Street side, where all pocketbooks were inspected to prevent stealing. Worker after worker testified to their inability to open the doors to their only viable escape route ? the stairs to the Washington Place exit, because the Greene Street side stairs were completely engulfed by fire. More testimony supported this fact. Yet the brilliant defense attorney Max Steuer planted enough doubt in the jurors' minds to win a not-guilty verdict. Grieving families and much of the public felt that justice had not been done. "Justice!" they cried. "Where is justice?"

Twenty-three individual civil suits were brought against the owners of the Asch building. On March 11, 1913, three years after the fire, Harris and Blanck settled. They paid 75 dollars per life lost.

Last Update: 23 Jan 2004