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Title: Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle ISBN: 0-87113-874-3 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.68 (19 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Heart breaking, important book
Comment: I've just added this book to my Amazon list of books every American should read. "Triangle" is an important study of a pivotal time in this country's history. The focal point of this study is of course, the ghastly fire that claimed the lives of 146 workers (mostly women) at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory on March 25, 1911. von Drehle introduces us to several of those who were working at the Triangle that day, some who survived and others who did not. He also explores the deplorable working and living conditions of the time and how battles were being waged to improve the lot of workers. Many who perished were recent immigrants to the United States and van Drehle tells the immigrants' stories as well.
We also meet the employers and the political powers, notably Tammany Hall that helped sustain them.
The circumstances of the fire itself are explored in chapters that read like great fiction. The details are at times graphic, but then they must be to convey the horror of what happened. But more than gruesome, the story of the victims is utterly heart breaking.
Yet surely the greater tragedy is not the fire but the daily sufferings of Americans forced to work long, excruciating hours on mind numbing jobs for pitiful wages. The heart weeps at how fellow Americans (gainfully employed ones) struggled to survive less than 100 years ago.
However out of such tragedy along with villains there are heroes, those brave souls who led strikes, or merely endured with dignity and those politicians who strove, not to line their pockets, but better the lives of others. The reforms they pursued in the wake of the fire comprise an important part of the book's latter third.
von Drehle's greatest accomplishments are bringing all the elements of this story together and presenting them in such an entertaining read.
Rating: 3
Summary: An Ideological Fire
Comment: While an interesting and informative account of the times, the title of this book is a misnomer. The Triangle fire is merely an aside to the author's political and sociological agenda. Too little character development and the relatively small space alloted to the fire itself force the reader to become more involved with the "times" than the "event". For a more precise account of the actual Triangle fire, I, too, would refer readers to Leon Stein's "The Triangle Fire".
Rating: 5
Summary: From the author
Comment: Richard Peladeau has leapt to a mistaken conclusion in his review of my book.
The young woman he mentions in his review, Rosie Freedman, did, in fact, die in the fire, and her life story is an important part of "Triangle." She was born in Bialystok, Poland, in the early 1890s. In 1906--as a young teenager--she survived one of the deadliest pogroms in Russian history. Her family then sent her, alone, across Europe to board a steamship for the crossing to New York. After clearing Ellis Island, she went to live with an aunt and uncle who were already in New York. It's likely she had never met them.
At age 14, Rosie managed to earn enough in the garment factories to pay her room and board, cover her expenses, and send money home to support the family she left behind.
Rosie Freedman died in the Triangle fire, on March 25, 1911.
About 350 workers survived that fire. One was a teenager named Rose Rosenfeld. Years later, she married a man named Freedman, and Rose Rosenfeld became Rose Freedman. Mr. Peladeau is correct that Rose Rosenfeld-Freedman lived to the age of 107, and was the longest-lived survivor of the fire.
This is all explained in the end notes of "Triangle." Mr. Peladeau is wrong. These are two entirely different people. This is not a major mistake--in fact, as other reviewers have noted, "Triangle" contains more information about the lives of the Triangle factory workers than any previous book on this subject.
--David Von Drehle
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Title: Ship Ablaze : The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum by Edward T. O'Donnell ISBN: 0767909054 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 10 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903 by Nat Brandt, R. Perry Duis, Cathlyn Schallhorn , Perry R. Duis ISBN: 0809324903 Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Triangle Fire by Leon Stein, William Greider ISBN: 0801487145 Publisher: Ilr Pr Pub. Date: April, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967 by David Maraniss ISBN: 0743217802 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester ISBN: 0066212855 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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