Early Labor Organizing

The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) was created in 1903 to support garment workers' participation in unions. The WTUL's mission was to improve living and working conditions of garment factory workers by improving wages, advocating access to education through literacy programs, calling for an end to night work for women and demanding an end to child labor. The WTUL also called for an end to the subcontracting system which often led to 52+ hour weeks with unpaid overtime and demanded that at-home piecework be limited to 2 hours a day.

March is National Women's History Month. It is easy to forget that women, especially immigrant and poor women played a pivotal role in bringing better working conditions to all American workers. They campaigned for 8 hour days, safer working conditions and called for an end to the common practice of wage reductions for supplies and electricity necessary to perform job functions.

Garment workers began organizing and striking in New York City in the late fall of 1909. 30,000 Women's Shirtwaist Makers walked off the job, demanding better working conditions. The strike ended February 15, 1910.

Picketing women withstood police brutality, imprisonment and disapproval from their families for not behaving in "ladylike ways." Factory owners hired scabs, thugs, police and prostitutes to intimidate and threaten picketing garment workers, deliver violence, threats and to cause general mayhem during the protests. Male tailors gained courage from the Women's Shirtwaist Makers strike which eventually led to the Great Revolt of 1910.

Garment Workers

The average garment worker in New York in 1911 was a young Russian, Italian or Jewish girl between 15-17, newly immigrated and illiterate. Immigrant families took piecework home where children as young as 3 or 4 years old worked overnight pulling basting and trimming threads as the entire family worked. Young children sometimes worked on the factories floors and would hide when labor inspectors visited. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory's 9^th floor workers "official" ages were from 14 to 43. Many young immigrants either lied about their ages in order to obtain work or did not know their exact age. The majority of the workers were between 16 and 23 with a median age of 17.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory made "shirtwaists." This was an extremely popular style of blouse worn by post-Victorian era women in the United States. It is the blouse most often associated with the Gibson Girl.

The Factory occupied the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch building. The Asch building was hailed as an engineering feat of its time and was touted as a "fire proof building." Fire sprinklers were a costly investment, so Factory owners, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, decided not to install them in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

Fire safety measures available for the 9^th floor factory workers at the time of the fire were: 27 tin buckets of water, a single flimsy fire escape, 2 doorways, one chained and locked, the other opened inwards, effectively trapping the workers inside after the hysterical masses crushed those in front against the doors in an attempt to escape.

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For more photos, view this flikr slide show.

This Teaching Kit meets current OSHA training requirements. The BBP program was created for students and employees who have potential for occupational exposure to blood or other potentially infectious materials. Bloodborne Pathogens, Fifth Edition includes supplemental information on airborne pathogens such as tuberculosis.

The Teaching Package includes: