
Triangle
The Fire That Changed America
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Narrated by:
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Barrett Whitener
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By:
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David Von Drehle
On March 25, 1911, as workers were getting ready to leave for the day, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Within minutes it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. Firemen who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside: their ladders simply weren't tall enough. People on the street watched in horror as desperate workers jumped to their deaths. The final toll was 146 people - 123 of them women. It was the worst disaster in New York City history.
This harrowing yet compulsively readable book is both a chronicle of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and a vibrant portrait of an entire age. It follows the waves of Jewish and Italian immigration that inundated New York in the early years of the century, filling its slums and supplying its garment factories with cheap, mostly female labor. It portrays the Dickensian work conditions that led to a massive waist-workers strike in which an unlikely coalition of socialists, socialites, and suffragettes took on bosses, police, and magistrates. Von Drehle shows how popular revulsion at the Triangle catastrophe led to an unprecedented alliance between idealistic labor reformers and the supremely pragmatic politicians of the Tammany machine.
David Von Drehle orchestrates these events into a drama rich in suspense and filled with memorable characters: the tight-fisted Shirtwaist kings Max Blanck and Isaac Harris; Charles F. Murphy, the shrewd kingmaker of Tammany Hall; blue-blooded activists like Anne Morgan, daughter of J.P. Morgan; reformers Frances W. Perkins and Al Smith. Most powerfully, he puts a human face on the men and women who died on March 25th. Triangle is a vibrant and immensely moving account of the hardships of New York City life in the early part of the 20th century, and how this event transformed politics and gave rise to urban liberalism.
©2004 David von Drehle (P)2011 Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...




















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Interesting but Loong
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If you like this kind of history book its great.
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I thought the performer was excellent.
Highly recommend!
Great book!
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The book is about my ancestors, the mostly Jewish garment workers and bosses in NYC, so I've always been curious about their conditions. And in fact I briefly worked for a button works Co. in the early seventies - back when cutters had a good trade before the entire industry went overseas. So I have some idea of the layout of Triangle.
I highly recomend the book, like most of the reviewers on the Amazon website. The reviewers that said the book was too political are the same right wing people who never want to hear about union struggles even when it is definitely part of the history. The book would be pretty mediocre if it dealt only with the fire.
Excellent book on Fire and Socio Backround
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Fantastic!
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Am very glad I read (& listened) to this book as I learned things about that time period and the fire that I never knew - as well as how significant this event was in shaping future laws and political direction. The beginning portion of book was a bit dry, largely due to all of the social/political context and straight history (almost read like as a textbook), but it was a compelling read overall, and very well-done.
Historical Importance
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History of Politics
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A VERY TOUCHING ACCOUNT OF HISTORY ALMOST LOST.
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strikingly truth to wealth and privilege
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Great account
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