The fire that ignited a movement.

“Horrified and helpless, the crowds—I among them—looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled, bloody pulp. Occasionally a girl who had hesitated too long was licked by pursuing flames and, screaming with clothing and hair ablaze, plunged like a living torch to the street. Life nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling bodies.”

On March 25th, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire killed 146 workers, most of them young girls who were trapped on the upper floors of a garment factory just one block off Washington Square. The building’s owners had locked all the exits except one, so they could search the girls each day as they left.

One of the eyewitnesses on that dreadful day was Frances Perkins, who would successfully enact so many child labor and workplace safety reforms that FDR makes her America’s first female cabinet member, Secretary of Labor, where she personally lead the creation of the New Deal, including the Civil Conservation Corp, Unemployment Insurance, the first minimum wage law, and the formation of the Social Security System, earning her the cover of Time Magazine.

Our TellBetter tour of Washington Square vividly recounts the tragedy. Over one hundred young women fell to their deaths where you stand. But from that hallowed ground, a safer, fairer world would rise.