Episode 6: New York v. Isaac Harris & Max Blanck
In 1911, a devastating fire raged through the Triangle Waist Company, killing 146. It was one of the worst workplace disasters in American history. Many people blamed the factory's owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, and wanted them to pay. But at Blanck and Harris's manslaughter trial, a shrewd defense attorney and weak worker protection laws ensured that the prosecutors were in for the fight of their life...
Episode Resources
Episode Transcript
Works Cited/
Referenced
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The 1911 Triangle Factory Fire, multiple documents, Kheel Center, Cornell University.
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“Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Improvements in Workplace Safety–United States, 1900-1999,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Vol. 48(22), June 11, 1999), p. 461-469.
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Mark Aldrich, Safety First: Technology, Labor, and Business in the Building of American Work Safety, 1870-1839 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
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“Asch Building Floorplans,” Mackenzie Zappe, National History Day, 2015.
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Martha Bensley Bruere, “What is to be Done?” Life and Labor, May 1911.
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Jamie Bronstein, Caught in the Machinery: Workplace Accidents and Injured Workers in
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Nineteenth-Century Britain (Stanford University Press, 2007).
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“Chronology of a Long & Productive Life,” Frances Perkins Center.
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Cara Cifferelli, “Better Know a Building: Brown Building,” NYU Local, April 10, 2012.
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Ronald D. Doctor, “Female Given Names: Hebrew and Russian and their Transliterations from the Kremenets Vital Records and Revision Lists,” Kremenets Shtetl Co-Op, September 14, 2015.
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Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen, “The Fire Last Time: Worker Safety Laws After the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,” Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2011).
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Lola Fadulu, “After 112 Years, Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Victims Get a Memorial,” The New York Times (October 11, 2023).
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Rebecca Greene, “Out of the Fire,” New Jersey Jewish News, February 23, 2011.
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Arthur F. McEvoy, “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911: Social Change, Industrial Accidents, and the Evolution of Common-Sense Causality,” Law & Social Inquiry Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring, 1995), p. 621-651.
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Arthur E. McFarlane, “The Triangle Fire – The Story of a “Rotten Risk,” Collier’s National Weekly, May 17, 1913, p. 7-8, 28-29
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The New York Times: “300,000 in Fire Parade” (April 4, 1911); “120,000 Pay Tribute to the Fire Victims” (April 6, 1911); “Indict Owners of Burned Factory” (April 12, 1911); “Triangle Owners Acquitted By Jury” (December 28, 1911); “Regrets Voting for Triangle Acquittal” (December 29, 1911); “Meaning of an Acquittal” (December 29, 1911).
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Douglas O. Linder, “Triangle Fire Trial (1911)", Famous Trials, UMKC School of Law.
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Francis Perkins, Lecture at Cornell University - School of Industrial and Labor Relations, 30 September 1964, via Kheel Center at Cornell University.
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David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, “A Short History of Occupational Safety and Health in the United States,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 110 (May 2020), p. 622-628.
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Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, “Frances Perkins: Architect of the New Deal,” JSTOR Daily, July 8, 2020.
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Trial Transcript: The People of the State of New York, Before: Hon. Thomas C.T. Crain, Judge, against Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, via Kheel Center at Cornell University.
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“U.S. Census Bureau History: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911,” U.S. Census Bureau, March 2016.
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David Von Drehle, “No, history was not unfair to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory owners,” Washington Post, December 20, 2018.
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David Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).