Talk:Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

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Contents 1 section moved 2 suggested reading 3 "All but one of the victims..." 4 Image dates 5 Missing images 6 Wages?

[edit] section moved

(moved from the main article) "not to be mean but i still need more information about this event...."

• Seems ok to include it —Dogears (talk • contribs)

[edit] suggested reading

Suggested Reading:

David von Drehle's Triangle: The Fire that Changed America is a readable account.   -- Anna Kucsma 16:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "All but one of the victims..."

There's a line several paragraphs in that reads:

All except one of the victims would be found dead on the ninth floor.

I've added a "citation needed" to this line, as I was under the impression that all those killed had been on the ninth floor. Then again, that doesn't mean that I'm not wrong, either. Furthermore, even if it does turn out that this statement is indeed correct, is should be rewritten. As it stands, it suggests that all (but one, of course) of the victims were found on the 9th floor; there is no wat this could be the case if, as was the case, peope jumped to their deaths from the ninth floor.

If anyone has a reference (most of my books are currently in storage), please add it and/or rewrite the sentance.  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 15:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This has since been modified to read:

All except one of the victims would be found dead inside the building. The survivor (Hayman Meshel) was found in the basement immersed in water up to his neck.

Which is not any better, really, than the previous version. The specifics of the exception (one Hayman Meshel, apparently) adds to the paragraph, but there still needs to be a reference. Probably a rewrite, too.  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 18:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image dates

Two of the images in the article have weird dates in their details:

• Image:Triangle Factory fire 002.jpg claims to be from March 15, 1923; did the bodies really lie there for a few years?
• Image:Triangle Factory fire 004.jpg claims to be from March 25, 2006, but given the quality, more likely to be a contemporaneous image?

DMacks 02:04, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree thet Image:Triangle Factory fire 004.jpg almost certainly wasn't taken in 2006. Since the fire, the building was bought by NYU and turned into classrooms; given the damage, the picture probably would have been taken well before then. Furthermore, given the crowd formation, it was probably taken the day of the fire.  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 13:32, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Both of those were the result of vandalism on commons. I have reverted the vandalism and the dates are now correct. --rogerd 16:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing images

The images are gone, without a trace? Things like Image:Triangle Factory fire 004.jpg used to exist, but now it's gone and not even an entry in its Deletion Log. DMacks 17:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Ahah, they were Commons images and deleted after discussion there. I think we could make a case for Fair Use of at least one of the images being acceptible as Wikipedia:Non-free content, per it being an iconic image of an historically important event that cannot be recreated. We don't know the full source info, but we know some of it and in particular we know the date (at worst to within a day or so) based on the content of the image (I can't believe that was such an apparent sticking-point in the Commons discussion). Maybe even could claim them as Wikipedia:Public domain, given they were clearly taken in 1911, and hence before 1923. Or is the problem that though the image might be PD, the chain of custody might not be (I don't know how copyright of an image is when it's published in a copyrighted collection)…do we need to find an "original" image and scan/photograph/etc it ourselves? DMacks 18:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Strange that they were talking about a lack of evidence that it was taken before 1923. If I remember the picture correctly, it clearly showed the aftermath of the fire, and people in c. 1911 dress. (I mean really, what did they do? Stage another fire?) Mere lack of external evidence doesn't mean there's no evidence at all.  — AnnaKucsma  Speak! 14:30, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wages?

"Some of the women were as young as twelve or thirteen and worked fourteen-hour shifts during a 60-hour to 72-hour workweek, sewing clothes for a wage of $7.00 per week (approximately $150 per week in 2006 dollars), which was less than 10% of the average wage level at the time."

This sentence strikes me as odd somehow. If $7 per week back then is $150 per week in 2006 dollars, and if this was less than 10% of the average wage level, doesn't this imply that the average wage level was more than $70 per week back then, or $1500 per week in 2006 dollars? So the average wage level in 1911 was the equivalent of around $75,000 in today's dollars? That seems pretty unlikely to me. There is no source, but I have no real idea of what part of this makes no sense so I didn't fix anything... just thought I would raise the question here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Since you brought this up, I started looking at this. I have found a citation for how much an average worker was paid at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. From Link to History Matters Interview

"My own wages when I got to the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was a dollar and a half a week. And by the time I left during the shirtwaist workers strike in 1909 I had worked myself up to six dollars....The operators, their average wage, as I recall - because two of my sisters worked there - they averaged around six, seven dollars a week. If you were very fast - because they worked piece work - if you were very fast and nothing happened to your machine, no breakage or anything, you could make around ten dollars a week. But most of them, as I remember - and I do remember them very well - they averaged about seven dollars a week. Now the collars are the skilled men in the trade. Twelve dollars was the maximum."

So now at least we can substantiate the wage information. The next thing that we need to do is find out how much this wage would be in adjusted dollars and how much the average wage level was at the time. Remember (talk) 14:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

According to this converter, which may or may not be correct, $7 in 1911 is worth $153.22 in 2007 when pegged against the Consumer Price Index. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 21:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

So now it seems that the $7 number is more or less reasonable, and the $150 in 2006 dollars is more or less reasonable. So this leaves the bit about "which was less than 10% of the average wage level at the time" as being questionable. What were average wage levels in 1911? (I think the question is a bit odd, wages for whom, but I guess the idea is to compare to overall earnings to illustrate that this was a relatively low-paying occupation).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)