TRIANGLE FIRE

DIRECTOR:
Jamila Wignot

WRITER:
Mark Zwonitzer

NARRATOR:
Michael Murphy

VOICE-OVERS BY:
Ami Ankin
Meredith Anne Bull
Michael Daly
Kara Jackson
Joe Lisi
Marta Milans
Frank Pando
Daniella Rabbani

ACTRESSES / ACTORS
Joanna Bonaro
Rachel Claire
Sarah Cubbage
Óscar De La Fé Coló
Sharon Freedman
Frederic Heringes
Melissa Miller
Julia Royter
Yelena Shmulenson



On March 25 1911, 146 women, men, and CHILD laborers died as a result of malevolence, greed, corruption, and apathy.

THE TRIANGLE FIRE is a documentary about the victims, the events that lead up to the fire, and some of the things that happened after.

In the United States, employers still have TOO MUCH control over their workers.
Far too many companies still FAIL to protect their workers. They also CONTINUE to discriminate, manipulate, and cheat their employees.

In my opinion, the TRIANGLE FIRE deaths were a form of MURDER.

I am going to let the screen-grabs and quotes speak for themselves....



QUOTE BY NARRATOR: "On April 5, 1911, 400,000 people lined the rain-drenched sidewalks of New York as an empty, horse-drawn hearse crept from the dank, narrow streets of the Lower East Side toward the skyscrapers towering over Madison Square. New Yorkers from all walks of life had come to pay tribute to the unidentified victims of the Triangle fire: the deadliest workplace accident in the city's history"



QUOTE BY NARRATOR: "Every morning - six days a week - more than 100,000 people poured out onto the streets of the Lower East Side, headed toward another day's work in the city's garment factories. Many were young women in their teens, some were girls as young as 10"

QUOTE BY NARRATOR: "Sewing machine operators faced a 14 hour workday for $2 a day at most. And that was before bosses docked their pay for the needles, the thread, the electricity they used"



Max Blanck and Isaac Harris - AKA SCUMBAGS...



QUOTE BY STEVE FRASER: "Bosses are under such intense competitive pressure that they're prepared to ignore under most circumstances the grievances of their workers to treat them like, like shtuka, like animals, like pieces. And they don't fear anything. There's no government intervention. There's no labor legislation. There's really very little sanitary legislation protecting the health and safety of workers. There are no minimum wage laws or maximum hour laws. Nobody's watching!"



QUOTE BY SONIA MURRAY ( AMI ANKIN ): "He wouldn't let you stop. Not for a drink, the bathroom, nothing"



QUOTE BY FEMALE WORKER: "Sometimes, in my haste, I'd get my finger caught and the needle goes right through it. I bind the finger up with a piece of cotton and go on working"



QUOTE BY ANZIA YEZIERSKA ( MARTA MILANS ): "I used to creep up on the roof of the tenement and talk out my heart to the stars and the sky. Why were we cramped into the crowded darkness? Why are we wasting with want? Where is America?"



QUOTE BY ANNELISE ORLECK: If you have someone on the social register walking a picket line, police are going to be a little bit more careful and even private police are gonna be a little more careful about who they club.



QUOTE BY ANNA GULLO ( MARTA MILANS ): "The elevator came up and I was swept into the car by the crowd behind me. The last thing I remember seeing was my sister Marie, enveloped in flames"

QUOTE BY WILLIAM GUNN ( MICHAEL DALY ): "The last workers were trapped against the blackened windows, burning to death before our very eyes. The glass they were pressed against shattered. Down came the bodies in a shower, burning, smoking, flaming bodies, with disheveled hair trailing upward"



QUOTE BY DAVID VON DREHLE: "People were invited to come in and try to identify children, or wives, or husbands, or boyfriends, or daughters, or girlfriends who had not come home all night"


VIDEO INFO
Television broadcast AND online
WIDEscreen
Color AND black & white
Region - Not applicable
Company - APOGRAPH PRODUCTIONS / PBS
NOT rated
Extras - Not applicable
Inserts - Not applicable


OBTAINED AT - PBS
PRICE - Free


DO I WANT MY MONEY BACK?:
NO!!....

THE TRIANGLE FIRE should be required viewing in schools.

This documentary aired on the PBS program called AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.